Requiem Of The Splattered
by MaizeTheYellowInkling
Summary: An odd disease has spread through Inkopolis, it's not only taking away the mind's of those infected. It is also taking away their color. A cure has been manufactured, the only problem is getting the cure out there. Callie and Marie are left with the task of saving not only all the inklings, but the octolings as well. Will they succeed as heroes of hope? Please Review. (Completed!)
1. Investigation

**Authors Note: Hi all! I hope you enjoy this new fic, I'm trying my best to bring a different twist to zombies. And I have no clue how I've done with that, either way have a good day and take care! And this fic is going to be relatively short.**

It was a dark fall night in Inkopolis. A couple of weeks ago, the season had changed, and only days after summer's end, the tree leaves began to change from green to orange, before falling off the branches and scattering in the wind, not that anyone minded. The inhabitants of Inkopolis were inklings, which could change into squids at their own free will. An unfortunate disaster had occurred thousands of years ago, flooding the world. When the water receded, some species began to evolve. Squids became inklings, and after a lot of hardships, Inkopolis was created. The biggest thing in this entire town was turf wars, where everyone competed to improve their skill and show how fresh they were. Everybody could become immensely fresh, but the number one priority was to have fun. Everyone in Inkopolis could be considered an artist in some sense of the word.

The evening continued at the main plaza of Inkopolis, which was a center for many shops, as well as the battle tower which people resided in for battles, with the huge great zapfish attached. At one point the great zapfish had vanished for a few days, and thankfully returned with no harm. Two confused inklings were walking out of the battle tower, looking around the eerily empty main plaza, every shops they saw was closed. Some nights, Inkopolis just really was quiet, which was just what it was. The shops however rarely closed this early. Usually the shops all stayed open until eight in the evening, and it was only half past six. The sun only had just vanished minutes ago.

"Guess it's the end of tonight," a yellow tentacle haired squid spoke up. Beside him was his friend, an inkling with green tentacles for hair that was done up into a bow. Both of the young boys were tired after participating in quite a few turf wars against other random squids, and had become drained of their energy.

"I think it's time we head back to our apartment, Emerald," the yellow inkling yawned, ready to head back to their apartment, but then Emerald grabbed his arm.

"Wait, Beige! Hold on, I wanna see if the Squid Sisters are recording," Emerald begged. He was a huge fan of Inkopolis's two most famous squids, the Squid Sisters. Those two were the biggest trending stars that gained fame more and more daily, and each album they published would turn into a platinum seller in less than a week, and normally the famous duo could be seen near the plaza, working in their studio, though the main thing that most people liked about the Squid Sisters was that they were not mentally corrupted by their huge wealth and fame. They were a very nice pair that actively helped out communities in Inkopolis.

"Fine, but let's hurry up," Beige sighed, reluctantly following his close friend ahead to the nearby staircase that led up to another area in the main plaza. A huge window let the two look into a room that had two chairs and a table to the side, but on the other side of the dark room was some camera equipment, as well as a big television that normally the famous duo stood in front of when reading the news. There was an oddity, though. Something that they both noticed.

"Why is the place a mess?" Emerald frowned. The Squid Sisters' studio room looked like a person had snuck in just to make things look untidy. There was an entrance to the studio nearby. The green inkling was very disappointed to not see his favorite stars, but now he had another thought on mind.

"Emerald, come on… let's get going," Beige groaned, following his best friend. They noticed a pair of double doors, where normally there would be a guard there watching and making sure no one would sneak in through the entrance, but this time, there was nothing. In fact, one of the two doors was open slightly.

"We're going to get in trouble, dude," the yellow squid included in a bit of annoyance, not wanting to be arrested for breaking and entering, all because his friend just wanted to sneak in and probably take something for some delusional reason. He was going to follow though, just to make sure everything was alright.

"Something's going on in there. Aren't you curious, Beige? I mean, if we find some criminal in there and stop him, we might get a chance to meet the Squid Sisters in person!" Emerald exclaimed excitedly while opening the door. All the lights were off, and they could barely see. At times like this, the green inkling wished he could find a light switch, but it didn't look like any was around.

"Okay, one, I hate the Squid Sisters. Two, you look like a stalker enough already. And three, this place is as scary as a cave," Beige retorted, but his comments fell on his friend's pointy deaf ears. He had to follow him inside to keep him safe and explain what was happening to the police if they wound up coming. Emerald went on inside, his friend following shortly behind him. This studio had hundreds of shows made in it, but the Squid Sisters were the biggest rating attractors. The only real television show that was really known from this studio was Squid Attorney, which was about a poor defense lawyer who was never able to get a break from his job, and had to always find some way to prove his clients innocent with evidence, and an incredible amount of bluffing and luck.

"I'm sure the door's locked," Beige stated as they approached the door that had a plaque on the front of it reading Squid Sisters. The studio room's big door would be locked whenever no one was working here. However, Emerald grabbed the handle with a smile and opened the door wide. The irritated Beige just wanted to satisfy his friend's creepy desires and get out of here so he could go home and get some rest.

"Hey look, lollipops," Emerald said, already in the room in half a second. Beige entered confusedly, seeing the table the Squid Sisters normally sat at, which Emerald was already sitting at. Atop the table stood a small round pencil holder with two big lollipops within them.

"Emerald! Those are for decoration!" Beige argued, but his friend had already taken one out and put it near his mouth, licking it happily. The one he had grabbed tasted like watermelon and strawberries.

"You can eat them!" Emerald exclaimed. Beige could not believe half of this. His friend was incredibly lucky tonight. Either that or this was a very elaborate prank being set up, but he doubted that since his best friend could not coordinate anything remotely, not even a game of go fish.

"Can you stop now? You don't know how old that is," Beige ordered. However, the two had their attention caught when they heard a loud crashing noise, perhaps something very expensive hitting the floor and shattering into pieces, and it came from the storage room of the Squid Sisters' studio. The staircase downward showed a door that led to it being wide open once more, like someone had gotten so sick of working here, that they just opened every door before quitting.

"Maybe it was a rat…?" Beige said, Emerald tossing the big lollipop aside before beginning to climb down the steps, his best friend reluctantly following.

"A rat running around breaking things? Something is going on here, Beige, and we're going to make headlines of the news when we stop it," Emerald happily reminded the yellow squid of that odd hope the green inkling had of meeting the Squid Sisters, and maybe being famous for being heroes that stopped a break in. At this point, Beige had given up and just played along with it. If they were not out of this studio in the next ten minutes, he was going to bail.

"Oh, good. Finally, a light switch…" Beige smiled. For once their luck was looking up. The basement light switch was in easy sight and sensibly right by the door, unlike the other missing light switches for some odd reason. He flicked it on, seeing the then illuminated basement. There were a few spare cameras and some older televisions that were used until the Squid Sisters upgraded to higher definition, and stacks of boxes were arranged, filled with wires. In this storage room lay a shattered glass bowl on the ground, only a few big chunks remaining out of the thousands of tiny shards.

"Huh?! OhmygoshBeigelook!" Emerald squealed in an excited tone. He was so enthralled by this that his voice got a little higher pitched. Beige wondered what it was until he noticed himself at the end of the basement. A girl sat there with her back turned to them, having pointy tentacles and wearing a business suit.

"An octarian?" Beige quirked. Octarians or octolings were another race that had evolved, but from octopi instead. All octarians were presumed to have left after the great turf wars that happened between the two races a long time ago. The yellow squid had a bad feeling about this, as this octoling girl looked odd. She was near the fire escape that was underneath the studio. Each room was connected by the basement, all for storage purposes anyway. She appeared to be blocking the emergency fire escape, an alternative one installed in the basement in case the main fire escape was blocked off.

"Ma'am? Are you alright?" Beige questioned, coming over and putting a hand on her shoulder. She looked at him, panting, having been startled by the sudden appearance of the inkling.

"He-hey… You need to get out, now," the octoling told him with her shaky voice, Emerald approaching as well. The two friends were very confused. This poor octarian looked like a mess. She was terrified, dirty, and covered in bruises and scratches, as well as a set of bite marks on her forearm. They heard banging on the other side of the door to the fire escape.

"You can't be here," Emerald tried to say, "This is a private studio…"

"Most of the studio workers from tonight are locked behind that door, as well as a few of my friends! Look, something's going on! You need to go now!" she raised her voice. Just then, the three of them noticed an odd color of ink pouring out from under the door. It was a soulless, dark grey, a color that no one had seen before. No squid alive had grey for ink.

"Ah! No!" she backed off. Emerald and Beige were confused. The fire escape was locked tight. Suddenly, they saw three odd figures emerge from the ink, various squids that looked like poor cameramen and editors. Their eyes housed a lifeless gaze in them, and their tentacles were grey, stripped of any color from them. They happened to have bite marks on them, as well. Some of them were drooling that very grey ink from their mouth.

"Wh-what the heck?! What's going on?!" Emerald said in shock. Before the three could do anything, two of the grey squids suddenly spat out bursts of ink that hit the octoling they had found down here. She screamed, being pulled on to the ground and then forcibly sucked into the ink. She was forced to revert into her octopus form, as she sank into the grey ink and never came out.

"Oh, jeez!" Beige began to back up in terror, making sure his friend could try to leave. The three grey squids began to approach slowly, letting out moans that sent shivers down their backs. They were frozen in place with fear. Suddenly, splatters of green ink arrived and hit the three grey inklings. They exploded into a puddle of the green ink, all of them splattered.

"Hey! You two okay?" they heard. Emerald's jaw dropped and his eyes widened, Beige was surprised as well. Standing at the bottom of the steps was a familiar white inkling, with her tentacles tied up into a bow behind her head and angled to the right, and sporting a black dress with green diamonds on it sideways. She was wielding an orange weapon known as an N-Zap'89, and with a full ink tank on her back full of green ink.

"Marie!" Emerald exclaimed in glee. Marie was the one of the Squid Sisters, and normally the more laid back of the two, but she knew to be serious when matters called for it, and this definitely was a big matter that needed nothing but seriousness.

"Er… hi?" Marie awkwardly greeted, looking to the grey ink on the floor. She shot at it with a green ink blast, and then the same octoling pop back out, coughing and gasping for air.

"Ignore my friend. He's just a nut. What's going on?" Beige requested. He had to believe this as the reason why all the main plaza had been cleared out. Marie came over and helped up the octarian, who began crying and hugging the Squid Sister.

"I don't know… I came back because I forgot my wallet. Suddenly, all the night shift workers have lost their minds and a bunch of octarians are in Inkopolis now. This is Octung. She was trying to help me in trade for saving her," Marie explained to the best of her ability. Needless to say she did not expect her night to become so violent.

"I… I got bit…" Octung began to sob, looking for some desperate comfort. She had failed at trapping the grey squids behind the fire escape door. Marie sighed, helping her up.

"From what I can gather, the insane inklings just… when you get bitten, you slowly lose your mind and your color before you become like them… but I'm sure everything will be fine," Marie reassured, having compete confidence. However, she noticed some odd looks on the pair of boys before them as they glanced to each other.

"A mind destroying disease that takes someone's color too?" Beige quirked, having a hard time believing it.

"Taking over minds… transmitting through bites…" Emerald gained a huge grin across his face, his friend having a slightly more concerned expression.

"It's zombies!" they both said at once. Emerald was excited, and Beige was terrified. Marie and Octung did not know what to think, but they were capable and active inklings that could work together with them. Marie was afraid of the octoling's fate, but she knew for sure that it might be grim.

"Right… zombies… look, do you guys wanna come with us? We're going to meet up with Callie and it might be best if we stick together," Marie recommended not splitting up. The more the merrier. The fact that these zombies were slow meant anyone could outsmart them, but she could not believe it herself that there was actually a zombie outbreak, and it was clear. Emerald had been waiting his whole life for some form of apocalypse, but being able to meet both of the Squid Sisters was a great dream that he longed to achieve.

"Sure, we'll gladly come along," Beige agreed, trying to keep a calm head. Marie was glad to know they had some questionably useful inklings to back her up, though she was aware that she was going to be greatly annoyed by Emerald, Marie turned around and began heading up the steps, supporting Octung to help get her out, she was unsure of what would happen to her. Beige and Emerald followed behind the Squid Sister. Marie hoped her cousin would be alright, but soon enough, they will all know that things were far from alright. Things were going to change rapidly in Inkopolis, for both octolings and inklings.


	2. Inkopolis's remains

**Authors Note: Hi all, I hope you enjoy the chapter. It took a bit longer than I'd of liked to make, but that was because I was trying to think up on how the 'zombies' work. Either way have a good day and take care!**

It had been four months since the zombies had appeared. Their numbers had increased drastically, and now most of Inkopolis were the colorless grey mindless monsters. Ever since it had begun, the season had changed. Snow had begun falling, and now it was nearing Squidmas. It was depressing to be stuck in a situation like this in a time like this. However, there was good news, as things were looking up for the surviving squids and octopi. The remaining survivors who were uninfected all had built a special wall to cut off a small part of Inkopolis from the rest of the city, and since then, they tried to slowly expand the wall out further, but it was difficult to take any location back.

"Mhm…?" Marie mumbled, hearing the sound of a light beeping noise coming from her alarm clock. She reached over and hit it, before sitting up in her bed. Here she was, in a small rundown apartment complex in a queen sized bed, wearing her green and white striped pajamas. The other half of the bed was empty. She stood up and began to head to the living room. This was the best available apartment for them to be given. Since the zombie outbreak, they had taken the easiest part of Inkopolis that could be taken back, which was also the most run down part of it. The Squid Sister missed her nice apartment in Flounder Heights, and she longed to see it again one day.

"Oh, good morning, Marie!" she heard, looking over toward the kitchen. There stood a girl her age wearing pink polka dotted pajamas, with very long black tentacles tied up into a bow behind her head. She was Callie, the other Squid Sister, and despite the name, the two were cousins. Marie was impressed with her close relative, she had been handling this traumatic change of events quite well. It was the least of what she expected from her.

"Good morning, Callie," Marie said, coming over to her and hugging her cousin. Callie smiled, returning the embrace. So far the morning was not much different than usual. The Squid Sisters had become a pair of leaders in a sense to the survivors, though the pressure of making sure everything was alright did not help their situation. They would like to think they were handling the stress decently, though they were worried about one another.

"Morning, Marie. I made breakfast," Callie claimed, having made a not so special breakfast consisting of a few bacon and egg biscuits. Her cousin smiled, thankful for her. She took one of the biscuits and took a chomp out of it. Callie was a better cook than her, not that she had any complaints on it since she just hated cooking.

"Thanks… we need to get changed, though. We gotta go over today's explanation, and then the plans with everyone," Marie insisted they get ready for the day ahead. Callie sighed and nodded, going off to the bedroom to get changed.

"And you wanted to just use cereal," a voice rung out in Callie's head, a tone similar to hers, but it felt a lot more sarcastic for that matter with zero hint of seriousness to it.

"Shut up!" Callie muttered before closing the door. Marie thankfully did not hear her cousin's ramblings as she went to the bathroom, wanting to get cleaned up and ready. It was going to be anything but easy, though the worst part ahead was the lot of others squids and octopi expecting them to be their leaders and to come up with the plans as always, and that was just what they planned to do.

After a sum of ten minutes, Callie and Marie were changed into green and purple coats respectively that had white trims around the collars and sleeves. The Squid Sisters stepped outside from their apartment. This was only a two floor apartment complex and they were on the second one. Snow was covering their walkway and snowflakes were falling from the sky. There were quite a lot of inklings and octopi going around their normal routine. Sadly, it seemed like nearly all octarians had been possessed by the zombies. Thankfully the inklings were doing great with working together with the octolings.

"Ohh my gosh, Marie, look at that!" Callie pointed out as they walked down the steps set up in the center of this small circular area of apartments, which was labelled as the living area. There was now a giant pine tree, where one poor inkling was at the top of the ladder, trying to set up the ornaments. Too bad that they were afraid of heights.

"Wow… where'd this come from? This wasn't here yesterday…" Marie asked. Someone had set the tree up overnight. However, the Squid Sister suddenly felt a cold burst of snow hit the side of her head, sending a chill through her face. She growled, brushing the snow off, looking to whoever threw the snowball. There she saw a familiar octopus.

"We found it in the storage facility we took the other day," Octung claimed, wearing a yellow thick sweater that had red lightning bolt patterns on it on, but her arm was terribly scared, and she looked timid and afraid somewhat.

"Well I'm glad you did it! Squidmas shouldn't be forgotten just because the world is in trouble…" Callie smiled, though her happy mindset got detoured, hearing the voice in her head chime up.

"A holiday based around shopping when you're technically now homeless, and in a city that is on the verge of destruction? Truly a great time to celebrate," the voice said, as if it was out to solely depress her or just take cheap shots with snide comments.

"Callie? You alright?" Marie asked, shaking her cousin a little to snap her out of her spaced out state.

"O-oh! Yes, I'm fine," Callie nodded. The Squid Sisters were doing their best to adapt to this new environment. No one so far was completely comfortable in this new zombie overrun city.

"Right… well, we should gather everyone for the planning today. I'll meet you two at the stage," Octung declared before heading off, leaving her footprints behind her in the snow. There was a lot that had to be planned today. Marie could tell that her cousin was putting on the best fake smile she could handle, but the white squid girl suddenly had an idea in her head to try and brighten up every one of the survivor's moods, she would announce it in a little.

"Oh no. He fell..." Callie said, seeing the poor inkling who had been trying to decorate the pine tree now on the ground. They now had a huge imprint in the snow. Marie ignored it, assuming they were alright. The two headed off to get to another part of the survivors' base. They walked along the walls where they could see a few of the grey colorless infected octolings and inklings on the other side of the fences or between the boards, yet they were pathetically weak. They could not push over or even break down the reinforced wall.

The Squid Sisters were nearing the main center, where dozens of the survivors were gathered up in front of a cheaply manufactured stage. Emerald and Beige were standing on the stage along with Octung. They both seemed unchanged since the beginning of it all. Callie and Marie stepped up onto the stage, walking to the center with all eyes on them. It was certainly no different than usual, but for some reason, it was scarier to them than it normally was, due to the circumstances they were facing. Callie did have a case of stage fright, she normally relied on her cousin or a teleprompter to get over it however.

"Why do we need to go over this again?" Emerald asked in annoyance, though in great joy to be near his two favorite pop stars.

"We go over it every other day..." Beige added to his complaints.

"Because, grandpa always said information was the most important thing to know! And anyone who forgets one tiny thing could be bitten…" Callie and Marie said greatly on sync, which they always had been since they were young. However, when they fought it could get quite volatile. The two were fighting for not only Inkopolis, but for two others as well. They were missing their grandfather Captain Cuttlefish who had trained them both when the octarian army tried to take Inkopolis's power source in secrecy. To make matters even worse, Agent 3, their best friend who also helped bring their morale and led the way in the past mission, was also missing.

"Well...Go on" Octung insisted, letting the two cousins continue. The octoling looked annoyed mostly because she was the only one willing to talk. At least a lot of the survivors here in the ever growing group were bite victims who had been cured.

"Y-yes! Let's begin with the basics," Callie coughed, feeling her nervousness take over her. Beige stayed still to just listen politely, since the Squid Sisters were two of their primary leaders. Emerald on the other hand was just sitting on the edge of the stage, waiting impatiently to hear.

"As you all know, the only reason they're called zombies is because they infect through one bite," Marie begun. It was a normal routine to update everyone on the status of the zombies. This included how they were affected by weather and all other required information, which then followed up by the plan for what part of Inkopolis the group was going to take back today.

"But they're really slow, so they need a way to stop their targets from fleeing. That's why they spit that grey ink. If it hits you, you're trapped in the puddle of it in your other form until another color of ink hits you… or until the monsters infect you," Callie continued, trying to keep the voice in her head from making any witty comments. Still, it was dreadful to imagine being trapped in one small ink spot until these monsters came to chomp into their flesh.

"When bitten, it takes four hours to become fully infected and lose all your colors. If you get bitten again, that takes thirty minutes off your time," Octung yawned, tired but a bit distressed to be speaking of how the infection had been transmitted. The more you were bitten, the quicker you would change.

"But don't worry! When you become a zombie, you don't die. Octung here was a zombie for a few months until the cure was developed, so don't panic just because you get bitten," Marie reassured. Since the cure was made, Marie and her cousin knew there was to be no fear. The only real thing they had to do was find a way to get it out there, and the best way was to splatter the zombies with the cure. Still, there were so many of the infected that they had to be cautious, but being slow with saving Inkopolis was better than not saving it at all. Emerald pulled out a small round bottle filled with a rainbow colored liquid, tossing it over to Marie.

"This is the cure, right here. Each bottle contains three doses. One dose can cure someone who has been bitten five times. You pour these into your ink tanks, and splatter the zombies. When the area gets cleared and the infected are cured, we move the wall up and take it over," Marie stated, she and Callie looking to Beige. He was the one who helped come up with the plans, and normally he was smarter than he appeared, but still was not much different than any other squid.

"We're going from Eelectric Avenue to Pufferfish Park today," Beige began his speech. Callie and Marie both did get bored quite fast of this long rambling. Octung and Emerald did not seem to be in any different position, but it was important nonetheless.

"Err, before you continue with today's plans, Beige, there is one more thing to be mentioned" Callie stopped him, looking to her cousin to tell it because she simply could not find the words. Marie rolled her eyes. She didn't have the heart to speak it either, even if it was common law at this point. Their octarian friend sighed in irritation, deciding to tell it herself.

"We're out to save the infected. If you kill one, it will be documented, and when things go back to normal it will be reported as a murder, no matter what the situation is," Octung explained. No one had any protest to this, as they were aware that with the cure around, there was no logical sense to resort to violence to deal with the situation. Instead they could treat it like the biggest and longest turf wars of all time. Beige was ready to continue with his plans, Emerald not really paying any attention until one of the Squid Sisters spoke up cutting him off again.

"One more thing. We're aware that Squidmas is in three days, and it can be a depressing event that should not be bypassed because things have gotten rough. So I'd like it if we all had a secret santa event to help keep our spirits up," Marie elaborated, noticing a bright smile across Callie's face that warmed her heart. A lot of the group there appeared to enjoy the idea. With that said and done, the Squid Sisters let Beige continue before they walked away, with the plan for today already burrowed in their mind. They wanted to go check up on something else, but they were aware that it was going to be another long, ridiculous, zombie infested day.


	3. Reassurance

Marie and Callie had left the huge group that was gathering where the plan was to be discussed, and in a few hours, they will be off to take another part of Inkopolis back and cure a huge amount of infected, the usual planning that they put into work. The Squid Sisters were relaxing in another part of the survivor base, which was a small farm, with a few greenhouses for growing fruits and vegetables, and one of the many essential ingredients of the cure which was the juice of grapes. The green houses however were regular buildings that had been altered to be repurposed. Needless to say the caretakers of the plants tended to sleep with the very thing they grew.

"I bet you're enjoying the snow, aren't you?" Callie hummed while petting a cow, which were a few of the many livestock. The survivors had taken two homes that once feuded with each other, and bashed down the sides of the walls to make it into one big barn, with a wooden fence set up outside it. There were also sheep, chickens and horses which served purposes of their own, but today the only animals out were the cows. Marie smiled, watching her cousin talk to the black and white cow, glad to know that her good spirit was still inside her.

"It shouldn't be much longer before we start with the plan," Marie reminded her cousin. Callie nodded, as so far all their attempts at taking back parts of Inkopolis went smoothly, but sadly, they took a lot of advanced planning before they put them into action, so it was quite a slow process.

"I'm nervous… but I'm sure it'll be fine," Callie admitted while walking away from the cows and returning to her cousin, but then that voice in her head decided to speak up once more while Marie was talking, trying to inform her cousin how they were going to go about this plan themselves and what their parts in it were.

"Nervous? Please… we both know you're going to be bitten out there, and no one will be there to help you," the sarcastic voice chimed, making her eye twitch. The voice only repeated her worst fears beyond stage fright; losing Marie and being alone.

"S-shut up!" Callie shouted, the voice in her head having struck a sensitive nerve. She noticed a shocked expression on her cousin's face. Marie immediately refocused her attention on her loved one. She climbed over the wooden fence, approaching her cousin walking around a few of the cows while the snow fell around them.

"Marie… I-I'm sorry, I wasn't…" Callie didn't know what to say to cover this. She had tried for the longest time to cover this split personality she had gained, and sadly, the stress of the zombie apocalypse almost completely taking all of Inkopolis had gotten into her head. Marie was affected by the stress as well, having gained paranoia for her surroundings. If someone was directly behind her and tried to get her attention, they would be subdued on the ground in half a second.

"Callie… what's going on? I hear you talking to yourself a lot lately, and it's worrying me," Marie expressed her nervousness for the black inkling's mental state. Callie knew pretending it did not exist might give only more trouble. Marie had assumed her cousin's deal was because of fear, and talking to an empty environment might help relieve it.

"Um…" Callie bit her lip, looking upset. She decided to be honest.

"I-I hear voice's Marie… well, no, I hear one voice! It sounds like mine, but it's in my head instead… but it's really mean," Callie explained to the best of her ability. She could almost feel that voice in her head trying to think of some witty insult. There was a silence between the two of them now that the truth was out. The only thing filling the empty sound was the wind howling as it blew, and the sounds of the cows from afar.

"I knew something was wrong… guess it was stupid of me to think we'd both be completely fine in this situation," Marie sighed, rubbing her head. They both had problems at the moment, what with being two of the main leaders of the uninfected survivors, and being without the comfort of their best friend or grandfather, they were left with just each other. Their few other friends around had little idea what kind of pressure they were under.

"Does the voice bother you all the time?" Marie quirked, wanting to know if her cousin at least had sanity, or if her nights had been damaged or sleepless.

"No… it gets really quiet in the morning and toward bedtime," Callie shook her head. When spoken aloud it sounded weird. Her cousin was relieved to hear that, believing that maybe when the zombie situation got better, her mental status will recover just as much as well. Suddenly the white Squid Sister had an idea that sounded horrible in her head, but she could not deny that she wanted to do it as well. The two of them synced up well once more.

"How about this, Callie. When this mission is over, we'll go on our own mission," Marie suggested as the two were climbing out of the wooden fenced area where the cows were kept in.

"Our own mission…? Isn't that dangerous? And what is the mission you have in mind?" Callie asked. It was a scary idea for the two of them going alone anywhere in Inkopolis. The zombies were slow and stupid though, and anyone who could move fast and keep their wits about them, but making sure to not get trapped in a corner would be fine, and even if they were bitten, they had the cure ready to go.

"You know what it is. Pufferfish Park has a small shortcut to the main plaza, and at the plaza is the way straight to Octo Valley where gramps usually is. Hopefully Agent 3 might be with him," Marie went through it step by step with a devious grin, to just sneak out on their own and go find their grandfather and best friend. Her cousin wanted to immediately shut the idea down. However, they synced up too well. She wanted to desperately find their relative and close ones.

"You up to it?" Marie added.

"Ye…yeah, I'm in! Anything for grandpa and Agent 3!" Callie agreed in a cheery manner, her optimistic mood shining once more until that all too annoying voice decided to shoot that down.

"Funny how excited you are to go to a place overrun with the infected. I'm sure the old man and that dumb kid have been bitten fifty times already. You'll find them roaming around very dangerous places in Inkopolis, with soulless looks in their faces," the voice repeated the biggest fears, aware that at any moment the infected could be in grave danger or accidentally harm themselves by shambling mindlessly. Callie felt tears jerk out of her eyes, not sure how she would go on if her grandfather or best friend was hurt. She suddenly got a painful smack across her face.

"Ow! What was that for?!" Callie whined, Marie putting her glove back on her hand.

"You were about to cry. Whatever that voice in your head says, tell it to shut up or else I'll give you a quick reminder of how much I care," Marie stated while the two were heading off to another area of the survivor shelter. Each step they took left a footprint in the snow, thus leaving a trail behind them that would quickly become covered up with more snow. Callie understood what her cousin meant. Marie only had smacked her because of that voice in her head. The white inkling refused to allow some imaginary voice to take over her cousin's mind and steal that cheerful spirit away.

"Thank you, Marie…" Callie said, pulling the other Squid Sister into a tight hug, the two of them just standing out under a leafless tree as the snowflakes fell around them. Marie sighed, rubbing her cousin's back. She was glad to be of help, but she was mentally begging fate to not make her have to hit her again. The embrace ended shortly after, and they continued on, holding hands tightly to exchange reassurance.

They arrived to an odd mechanics' facility. Three metal doors greeted them, all of which required a good bit of strength to open, and only one was open. The Squid Sisters stepped inside the mechanics' workshop, the room illuminated by a few dangling lights. Inside housed various young-aged inklings and octolings doing their own tasks. Some ran right past the Squid Sisters going out to play in the snow. There were a few elders in here with the children as well.

"J'ello ladies!" they heard, seeing an anthropomorphic jellyfish in a baseball cap and a striped sweater. Before the zombies had arrived, Jelonzo was just another merchant of Inkopolis's famous main plaza. He sold clothing, but mostly shirts, the freshest available to anyone, though when things started to head south and the zombie infection grew, he chose to donate what was left of all his clothes to the survivor shelter for them to use. He was the only merchant from the main plaza that made it into the survivor shelter. The fates of the other merchants were unknown.

"Hi Jelonzo how's everyone doing?" Callie greeted. This mechanics workshop was, for lack of a better word, the play area for the young. While the youth went to take back Inkopolis the elders stayed behind to take care of any squishies, blobbies or unhatched eggs there were. Squishies were newly hatched squids, and blobbies were newly hatched octarians. It was mostly just squid or octopi children that had not become fully developed inklings or octolings yet here, and any elders in need of medical assistance had the guards that defended the survivors shelter to help them. The mechanics workshop doubled as a safe house, with a secret entrance to a few long tunnels underground that connected to other main buildings.

"Oh, we're doing just fine! We owe ya a thanks. You two announcing that Secret Santa thing really lifted a lot of these squids' spirits," Jelonzo exclaimed. Marie felt a bit embarrassed to be hearing this. She only did it to try and cheer up her cousin, but was glad it was helping everyone out.

"It was nothing...I just hope everyone gets something they like" Marie muttered, rubbing her arm. Suddenly she felt a hand on her shoulder. Like a violent wrestler, she immediately grabbed the wrist and forearm and threw them over her shoulder and onto the snow, before stomping on their throat while twisting their arm painfully.

"Grah! Ma-Marie! It's me!" a choked Emerald whined. Callie and Jelonzo were especially startled by this. Marie and her cousin had learnt a lot of special moves from their grandfather in hand-to-hand combat, but sadly the white Squid Sister's newly developed paranoia had made her go all out recently on anyone standing behind her without warning.

"Oh so-sorry!" Marie apologized profusely, taking her foot off his throat and letting go of his arm, letting him stand up. Emerald rubbed his shoulder sorely. The three of them could see an ink tank on his back full of green ink and a Tentatek splattershot on his side with about four bottles of the rainbow mixture hanging off his belt. This, indeed, was the cure.

"Gosh… you owe me another autograph for that," Emerald declared. He had made track of how many autographs the Squid Sisters owed him for each injury or other problem that happened, and so far Marie was at twenty-five autographs in debt while Callie was only at a measly four. The two cousins brushed his statement aside.

"I came to get you two, because it's time to start the mission," Emerald simply stated. The Squid Sisters nodded.

"Bye, Jelonzo. You take it easy," Callie said, bidding their jellyfish friend good luck as she and her cousin followed Emerald to get to the others. It was time to start the mission and take back another part of Inkopolis. Eelectric Avenue was nothing more than a standard suburban neighborhood that would make for a nice housing residence, but Pufferfish Park was a huge amusement park, which housed a countless number of infected, which either way they could handle with ease, or so they hoped. Marie and Callie were keeping their personal mission secret from everyone else, not wanting them to worry about the two of them, or attempt to stop them.


	4. Average Day

**Authors Note: Hey all, sorry for the shorter than normal chapter. But I wanted to make the next one bigger. Hope you all have a merry christmas!**

Callie and Marie had gone to a large metal gate, which was the entrance to the survivor shelter, being controlled by two very strong inklings who had to turn a winch to make it raise and close. There were lines of various vehicles, each one loaded with inklings armed with weapons and back up supplies. The Squid Sisters saw a black van that had an extreme burning fire painting on the side of it.

"Ohh! Can I drive!?" Callie begged, her eyes shimmering with her pleading expression. Marie patted her cousin's head.

"No, you don't have a driver's license," the white squid simply said. Callie had failed her driver's test eight times in the past. However, Marie herself had passed it and had a license secretly, not that she was going to drive, but she had gotten it in case of emergencies, and did not let her precious relative know. Callie pouted, wanting to argue that there were no laws now, but that would make her gain some odd looks. Rules still existed that had to be abided by, and laws were going to be enforced as long as they could. They opened the side door to the van and climbed into the backseat. The inside of the van had a floor made of shag carpeting. Emerald was in the passenger seat of the front and Beige was in the driver's seat.

"Ready?" Beige quirked to the Squid Sisters while handing them two very small ear pieces. The girls both put them in one of their pointy ears. They were communicators that all the inklings had, but only the leaders of the groups for missions would be given the ability to talk aside, from the one who gave the orders on what to do and how to go through with the plan.

"Yeah!" Callie and Marie both said, a little too eager, while they were grabbing their weapons from the back of the van. Callie took a krak-on roller, and Marie grabbed a splatterscope, their favorite two weapons that never had let either of them down, even back when they were fighting the octarian army. The Squid Sisters tried to relax while each getting a few bottles of the cure stuffed in their pockets. There were a few boxes full of the cure in the back.

"Alright. Start it up," Octung's voice rung out from the ear pieces as the gate began to open, and then all of the vehicles began to move out, some immediately splitting off into different directions. Marie just looked out the window, seeing all the snow around and how the condition of each building was. It was creepy that half of the buildings were untouched. The zombies were not strong enough to break glass alone, yet they usually flocked to the most obvious opening around anything in their way. Callie meanwhile was just making sure her roller was ready.

The ride took a long time, but then the van they were in spontaneously coming to a stop, along with all the other vehicles left in this small squadron. The four climbed out of their vehicle, and immediately all of them scattered to entirely different areas with the rest of the inklings and octolings they were leading. This plan took a bit of odd variety, but they had done it before. Any zombies they ran across, they just instantly splattered with ease, because of how slow they were to react to even the simplest of attacks.

"Leaders of each squad, tell me when you're in position," Octung spoke through the ear pieces, ready and waiting. Callie wound up on the streets with all the other rollers, sloshers and splatling guns. Marie and the other chargers were on the roofs. Emerald and Beige were together with the shooters. Everyone was getting set up. Once everyone signaled they were ready, it was time to set the plan in motion.

"Okay, bait squad… start painting!" Octung shouted. Everyone in the streets of Eelectric Avenue waited patiently. There was a very normal tension in the atmosphere. Stress and worry plagued nearly everyone's minds.

"We're on it," a random female voice chimed from the radio, belonging to the leader of the bait squad. They all waited, hearing the sounds of various moans and groans ringing out loudly from all around that kept getting louder. All the groups saw two vans suddenly appear from around the corners, both turning and heading toward the ground troops. The back doors of the vans were wide open, and two squids in each van were pressing rollers against the road, leaving behind vibrantly bright pink trails of ink. The other van was leaving behind a bright yellow wide streak of ink. The vans came to a stop once they got past the rest of the inklings and octolings.

Callie gulped in fear, hearing the sounds of the monstrous groaning and moaning. They saw giant waves of zombies appear from both sides that the vans had come from, and there were hundreds of them, all covering up the pink and yellow ink, with their grey ink spilling from their mouth. The survivors had discovered that the infected squids and octopi were drawn by other ink colors for some reason, like moths mesmerized by a flame. These zombies had an obsessive disorder to turn everything grey.

"Alright! Cure rounds loaded! Splatling guns, open fire!" Callie ordered, and at least fifteen squids and octopi stepped up, revving up their splatling guns, the barrels of the weapons spinning fast. They opened fire, the rainbow mixture in their ink tanks flying fast and hitting the zombies randomly. Instantly they would be splattered in a few shots, but when blasted with the cure or any type of ink, they will reappear at the nearest spawn point which were mostly set up in hospitals, small medical facilities or at turf zones. Thankfully, the survivors already had planned ahead and had sent a small squad to the nearest hospital to make sure it was clear, and that people cleansed of the infection would not get harmed again.

"Alright, chargers! Aim for the back line of the zombies and weaken their numbers!" Marie ordered. All the chargers on the rooftops obediently opened fire, their grand rainbows of ink soaring through the snowflake filled sky and splattering any zombie they hit instantly.

This fight went on for minutes. This was nothing new to the Squid Sisters or any of the other inklings. They were noticing a few rogue zombies coming from the back road they had came from. Callie saw this, feeling that voice in her head already trying to think up some comment to demoralize her.

"We got these," Emerald stepped up with a grin, Beige right beside him. They both began to walk, going past the vehicles and opening fire, the rainbow ink hitting each zombie and making them fall over. Their weapons were too weak to splatter anything without using up half of their ink tanks. The zombies were being cured before their eyes. Emerald approached one of the newly cured octolings.

"Hey, hey, I got you. No need to panic," he said, helping him up while Beige covered his best friend.

"Don't touch me!" the octoling made him get off, just turning into his octopus form and hiding in the rainbow ink. Emerald was confused, but needless for anyone to say, this was the one environment the germaphobic octoling never wanted to be in.

"The zombies have been thinned out. Rollers, get ready and finish them off," Callie ordered. The splatling gunners were nearly out of ink. They backed off to refill, Callie getting in front of the zombie horde with the rest of the squad.

"Shooters and sloshers, black them up!" Octung commanded. Callie slammed her roller on the ground, everyone with her following her movement. They all began to charge forward, all of their rollers leaving behind a huge rainbow trail on the streets. They instantly splattered all of the zombies ahead of them. Marie's squad was shooting from the roofs, helping them. The sloshers and shooters followed behind the rollers.

Before they knew it, the battle was finished, and all the zombies were defeated. At least a good quarter of the horde that had not gotten splattered were now back to normal. They had color in their tentacles again. Octolings and inklings were all looking overjoyed to be back to their normal state, and the sound of cheering and joyous cries rung out.

"Eelectric Avenue is ours. The area is completely clear. No grey ink is appearing on our surveillance. In an hour we'll advance for Pufferfish Park," Octung said, and like that, nearly everyone else began cheering as well.

"Ain't that wonderful? More morons to add to the army of blatant fools trying to delay the end of the city," the voice in Callie's head rung out.

"Shut up, you…" she growled quietly, seeing Marie climbing down from the rooftop with her charger on her back. The two met and hugged each other tightly in joy of their victory.

"We did it! We did it!" Marie gleefully said.

"Yeah! We'll have Inkopolis back to normal in no time!" Callie added, both of them looking out over all the squids and octopi who were trying to adjust to what just happened, being quite surprised to be back to normal.

"We have vehicles on the way to extend the security wall and bring supplies for the newly cleansed," Octung explained, also overjoyed. Callie and Marie however were aware that Pufferfish Park would be a lot harder. They still wanted to go to the plaza to hopefully find their grandfather and Agent 3. The two just sat down on the sidewalk, trying to take it easy, the snow continuing to fall around them and pile up. They and the whole survivor squad needed time to recover their energy.


	5. Personal Mission

Callie and Marie had worked hard with all the survivors to take back Pufferfish Park once they were done with Eelectric Avenue. Thankfully, Pufferfish Park had been surprisingly easy. Any zombies there were trapped within it. They had to just call in two of their few limited ink strikes, and they practically had the entire place secure. Now, the Squid Sisters were wandering around, watching a giant number of inklings and octolings work hard to put up the wall for fortification to stop any zombies from coming within the area. Now the survivor shelter had a huge new addition to it. This park had the rides in it, but they were not going to permit any of them to be activated. The bright lights from the ferris wheel alone could draw the attention of zombies all over town.

"You've earned the rest," Marie said while helping her dear cousin sit on the bench. Callie smiled, thankful for this as she put her gloved hand on hers. She was quite exhausted, but she knew her cousin was the same energy wise. They had both worked hard today, and they had their own personal mission ahead of them, but for now, they had to regain their energy. Marie sat down beside her, the two watching everyone working away. It was astounding how people who had been just cured of their infection were wasting no time aiding the rest of the survivors. Their numbers were growing, and it meant an easier chance of winning.

"Look at that smug face of her. She thinks she's better than you. She even has said it on air before", that sarcastic voice spoke in Callie's head while she looked at her cousin. She shook her head. She knew this was a lie. She knew Marie did not think that at all. Any jokes about it on television were from one of many script made shots made for them to use against each other to promote a splatfest.

"Callie? You're crying…" Marie saw her dear cousin with clear tears welling in her eyes. Callie wiped her eyes dry.

"Sorry… I-I'm just afraid for grandpa and Agent 3…" Callie lied. The white Squid Sister let out a frustrated sigh, aware that it was that same voice in Callie's head once again driving her to madness. Marie reached up and pulled her hat off her head, turning it upside down and beginning to rummage through it.

"Don't think I forgot about secret Santa…" Marie commented. Callie snapped out of her sadness, though was then confused.

"He-hey! It's not secret if I know who my secret Santa is," Callie whined. Marie still found it hard to believe, but Callie still believed in Santa Claus. Three years ago, she caught her dear cousin placing presents under the tree, but she somehow had elaborated that Marie was helping Santa place presents. Still, the Squid Sisters were happy with the setup and no matter what, they knew they would like the gifts they got for each other each year.

"I know you're my secret Santa too. It's not like it's a secret… here!" Marie presented a small box that was wrapped up in pink wrapping paper, with a glittery red bow tied around it. She had only hidden it under her hat because of how light it was. Plus, she knew her cousin would notice it if she had stuck it elsewhere. She had gotten this gift from one of the stores on Eelectric Avenue after leaving the money in the cash register, just for fairness's sake. Callie began to unwrap the box, not wanting to argue with her anymore. Anything that could be done to silence that annoying voice was welcomed. She was surprised by what was in the present.

"Oh my gosh…!" Callie gasped. Inside the box was a ring with a diamond on it. This was one of the last things she expected to receive.

"Do you like it?" Marie jokingly asked, before being tackled onto the snowy ground into a very tight hug. A few confused passersby looked at the two before continuing with their work.

"I love it!" Callie squealed while her tentacles and arms were wrapped around Marie. Normally she was not a big fan of jewellery. At most, they liked to wear earrings, because too many flashy items would draw attention off of them and make them look like they were snobbishly bragging with how much money they have.

"Oof! …I-I'm glad you do…" Marie groaned, feeling like her back was about to be broken. After a torturous spine crushing hug, the Squid Sisters were back on their feet. They had went to one of the vans that was used to transport squids and octopi here. Callie seemed more enraptured by her new ring.

"Alright. Let's get going now. While no one will notice," Marie insisted. At this point, all the workers would assume they left to go get more supplies from the main base. Emerald and Beige were busy helping out in the construction of the new wall, so neither of them would notice. The Squid Sisters had their two weapons loaded in the back with their ink tanks.

"Yeah! Let's go find grandpa and Agent 3!" Callie exclaimed very gleefully. That ring had really brightened her mood. She then saw her cousin already in the driver's seat.

"Hey…! How come you can drive and I can't?!" she requested while getting in the passenger seat, quickly turning angry. And she was just going to request Marie permission to drive. The white inkling put on her seat belt and adjusted a side view mirror.

"Callie, I love you… but truthfully I got a license about a few months before the zombies appeared," Marie replied calmly before stepping her foot on the gas, the van beginning to drive out past an open part of the defensive wall. Callie just stayed quiet, pouting in the passenger seat, their vehicle leaving behind a trail of tire tracks behind them in the snow. There they went, driving off to the main plaza to find the squids close to them.

The drive was quite nice, compared to the current state of Inkopolis. The areas they drove by were robust, the snow covering everywhere in blankets of white, and the icicles dangling from trees. The streetlights were functioning fine, so the empty streets were the closest thing to eerie about this drive, thankfully the zombies they drove by ignored them and the van, mostly because there was no ink on it. They did not care remotely for the bright flame like painting on the side of it, and the van windows were tinted well so the zombies could not see their tentacles' colors through the windows.

Inkopolis's power was perfectly fine since they had several sources of energy, their primary being the great zapfish. The Squid Sisters always had fond memories of how they worked together with Agent 3 and their grandfather, Captain Cuttlefish, to rescue it from the octarians. It was certainly odd to be working with the octolings now, but their leader had been brainwashing them with music, so there was not one good reason to continue to grudge against the presently innocent race.

"I see the tower!" Callie exclaimed, pointing ahead while her cousin focused on the road. The battle tower shined brightly in the center of the main plaza. They could even see the great zapfish on it, which looked very happy as it always did, as long as it was able to rest at its home of the battle tower, which acted like a conductor for the electric animal. The primary power plant for Inkopolis was oddly just one animal, which so far the creature had no problems with it.

When it went missing during the octarian theft, the inklings began to feel guilty, like they had taken advantage of it or had not given the great zapfish credit. It actually got to the point where a huge party was thrown for the animal just to show their appreciation for all it did, which the Squid Sisters happily endorsed. The great zapfish only really cared for the food that was given to it. Still, Callie was hoping that maybe they could host another huge party like that once things went back to normal.

When they tried to drive into the main plaza, they noticed that the entrance road was blocked off entirely by a truck that was left there. They could not get past it, and they had no idea how long the truck had been parked there. No one had been to the plaza in months, and the vehicle will perhaps have long run out of fuel at this point.

"How are we going to get in?" Marie muttered, taking her hands off the steering wheel and scratching her head. Callie looked at the ring on her finger, trying to think on it as well, aware that her cousin was too afraid to try and walk in. Callie understood they couldn't see any zombies, but they might just be hidden. Even if they had a few doses of the cure on their personal beings, fighting off a horde would be a situation they wouldn't be up to handle alone. But then it hit her.

"Sheldon! Ammo Knights has a delivery bay for weapon parts!" Callie exclaimed, just remembering the very well-known weapons store that was still here.

"Oh! That's right! He used to always lock that area off for extra security. I can get us in there," Marie grinned. Her dear cousin was afraid of what she had in mind. The van drove around to the back of the Ammo Knights store. Surely enough, there was a locked metal door, ready to be pulled up once unlocked.

"Alright… how do we get it unlocked?" Callie asked from the passenger seat, rubbing her tentacle for comfort. She was feeling less safe as time went by. The driver was setting the van up, aiming it backwards, like she was preparing to back into the loading bay.

"Like this!" Marie shifted the van into reverse, backing up quickly. With a loud bang, there was a small clattering noise. Marie grabbed her splatterscope and green-filled ink tank from the back seat before climbing out. Callie immediately grabbed her krak-on roller and pink-filled ink tank, startled by this sudden movement.

"And we're in," Marie added while seeing the broken lock on the ground. The Squid Sisters both grabbed parts of the loading bay door and lifted it up. It had been a long time since it was last opened, but after a little effort, the two finally saw it slide open.

"Come on," Callie climbed up and stepped inside, taking Marie's hand and helping her into the unloading bay. They quickly closed the metal sliding door behind them to make sure that no zombies snuck inside and got the jump on them.

"Yeesh… this place is creepy," Marie stated. She had never been in Ammo Knights at dark before. She had come here a lot with her cousin, both disguised, when shopping for weapons. The Squid Sisters in the past had often snuck out to participate in turf wars to take breaks when their careers as pop star idols got too stressful for them.

"Looks like no one's been in here in a long time," Callie added. It made sense that the store and all of its weapons stayed untouched, since every inkling and octoling alive had plenty of weaponry in their possessions. There was no real point to take more weapons. The two could see the plaza through the shop window. However, someone was sitting behind the counter. He stood up upon hearing them.

"'Ello, loves."


	6. The Old Plaza

**Authors Note: Hi all! Sorry this chapter took longer to make, holidays and a few issues popped up..Either way I hope you enjoy, and have a happy new year!**

Callie and Marie saw someone walk out from behind the counter. He had spikes running around his head and covering his right eye, and he was wearing a brightly colored purple poncho. The Squid Sisters were happy to see the familiar shady sea urchin. He was Spyke, probably the most successful of the shops in the main plaza, who ran a very expensive operation where any inkling could order clothing that they saw on other squids. The sea urchin was suspicious, and he ran very high prices that a lot of squids were happy to pay. However, most of the time, he accepted super sea snails for his own personal reasons, but he took care of them like his own pets.

"Spyke! Wow… it has been a long time…" Marie had not seen him in nearly a year, and that was before the zombie apocalypse begun. The Squid Sisters were glad to see him safe and sound.

"I was startin' to think that you two had gotten chomped. 'Spose it's good that you're fine. So mind explainin' why you broke into Sheldon's shop?" Spyke requested while approaching the side window of Ammo Knights, which had a huge set of blinds waiting to be put to use. Three zombies were at the windows, looking inside, their faces pressed against the glass like one of the Squid Sisters' fans staring at them outside their studio. They were ready to bite anyone of the three who stepped outside. Callie grabbed the string and pulled it, forcing the blinds to fall from the ceiling and shield them from the view of the infected.

"Someone blocked off the entrance to the plaza. That's why we had to break in here. What are you doing in here?" Callie asked. Spyke always lived on the streets for most of his life. He had a few locations to go to whenever he wanted, for his personal job. The sea urchin yawned tiredly.

"Was my turn to watch over the plaza," Spyke simply responded with little care to his voice. He had been forced to watch over Inkopolis's plaza to make sure everything was alright. He took turns with the other survivors. For him, job was another term for naptime to the shady urchin, and he had no complaints about it. Nothing ever happened at the main plaza, and the Squid Sisters' random appearance was the most silence breaking moment today.

"Turns watching…? Alright… so anyway, please tell us, have you seen grandpa? An old squid who used to hang out in the pipe by the battle tower?" Marie requested, both she and Marie on sync and thinking it was the best place and time to ask, since the plaza was the usual place that the merchants and their grandfather were in. Spyke approached the front door, licking his lips, acting as creepy as ever. A lot of inklings weren't afraid of him, yet young squids that were not fully developed inklings made up horror stories about the shady merchant being a cannibal, a robber, and even a murderer, but rumours rarely told the truth. The worst thing Spyke was known to have done was forgery to duplicate clothing.

"There aren't any old men with me and my mates. C'mon, I'll bring you to'em," Spyke said. It was demoralizing to Callie, as she wanted to just run out there and go down the pipe that went to the hidden Octo Valley, though one glance at it from the doors of the store showed that was out of the question; the pipe was frozen shut. Normally they could just turn into their squid forms and slip between the bars, but the water had been frozen over it, so a layer of ice was now stopping any common way of entering through it.

"We appreciate it," Callie thanked Spyke, grateful for his help. That was always a common worry for any survivor, that maybe there were those out there who wanted to only gain for themselves. Thankfully the Squid Sisters had not run into anyone that simple minded. Everyone cured and rescued or found immediately knew that the sooner they worked together, the faster Inkopolis could go back to normal. They watched as Spyke unlocked Ammo Knights shop door and stepped out into the snow.

"Wha… are you crazy?!" Marie called out, running out beside him and aiming her charger at the zombies that now noticed them. Callie followed shortly after the zombies got splattered instantly by two charger shots and exploded into puddles of green ink in the snow. They could now see more zombies in the plaza, coming for them because of the bright ink color they had just seen and wanted to turn grey, along with the three of them.

"Calm down, love. These things are dumb and slow. Just follow me and relax," Spyke reassured, just walking ahead toward the infected inklings and octolings with his hands in his pockets, Callie and Marie following. At the first signs of trouble, they were ready to fight, but they were aware that their colored ink will just attract more zombies, whose desires still were to drain all colors for some reason that none of the survivors thus far knew.

One zombie tried to grab Spyke, but he pushed it aside with the lightest of effort one handed, the zombie stumbling backwards and collapsing on the snowy ground. Callie and Marie decided to be calm, or at least try to be. Another two inkling zombies approached them, grey ink drooling from their mouths.

"So what've you two been up two in the last year?" Spyke began to make casual talk. They were impressed that he was able to be calm all the time. That was how he always was, even when he was younger. They watched him kick the first zombie in the chest, forcing it to knock over the other zombie.

"The cure for the zombies has been made. We have two bottles of it on us, but we've only got enough to cure four infected right now," Callie explained. She and her cousin wished to save their two cure bottles for themselves in case they were bitten.

"Spose that mean's Inkopolis is saved right?" Spyke yawned as they walked down the alley beside the coffee shop, a few zombies following them. The Squid Sisters enforced the rule to never become cornered no matter what. This time, they actively were walking into a dead end, all because of one shady merchant who was taking his sweet time walking barely faster than the zombies, but worst case, the Squid Sisters could resort to splattering the infected octarians and inklings.

"In a way. We've been doing our best to cure everyone, but it's really slow. It might take us another year before we've even taken back half of Inkopolis," Callie exclaimed. The zombies did not need to drink or eat to survive, so they couldn't just dump the rainbow elixir into the water supply and wait. If they had done that, they might have made the situation for the survivors a lot grimmer, since the zombie cure was not something meant to be drank on a regular basis, despite what its ingredients might imply.

"Ca-can you hurry up? The zombies are getting closer…" Marie requested fearfully, watching Spyke reach down onto the mat that he normally sat on back when his business had normal customers. He lifted it off, revealing a small hatch that he pulled up, revealing a ladder down.

"Ladies first," Spyke said. The Squid Sisters were still creeped out with how calm he was. Callie climbed down first, having to tug her tentacles down when they got stuck. Marie simply jumped in behind her. The sea urchin made his way down, closing the hatch after him.

"Where are we?" Callie questioned, looking around. It seemed like they were in a long, winding underground hallway. The lights on the ceiling flickering were a little from above him.

"No clue, loves. I stay on top-a the hatch in case my clienteles get mad at my product," Spyke walked ahead with a big grin at the thought. It was obvious that some people had tried to confront him about his price or the likes, and they most likely had a very horribly bad time. Callie was quickly afraid of where they might be going, gripping Marie's hand for comfort. Her cousin did not mind, as the two followed along behind Spyke. Wherever they were heading to felt very calm so far. Maybe the fact this hallway was a lot different from the snowy zombie infested Inkopolis, but their questionable friend seemed at least content with where he was leading them to.

After a while, they eventually reached the end of the constant turns and paths the odd hallways led them down, but finally they arrived to where Spyke wanted to take them. This underground area had few buildings around that looked quite old. The Squid Sisters recognized them.

"I know what these are… these were the stores gramps used to shop at," Marie exclaimed. She recognized them because she had seen them in plenty of their grandfather's photos he had showed them thousands of times when they were growing up. According to him, the shops wound up caving in due to poor supports, and thus they built the main plaza on top of this. Mostly the ones who lived in the plaza knew this.

"Is that who I think it is?" they heard, seeing someone approaching. He was quite short and wore a very thick coat with a hard shell on his head. Sheldon, the owner of Ammo Knights, was a horseshoe crab, and was friends with the Squid Sisters. They entrusted him with their true identities when disguised.

"Sheldon! It's great to see you're alright!" Callie happily went over and hugged the short shopkeeper, picking him up off the ground. The merchants working in Inkopolis's main plaza had come down here when things started going crazy, all but Jelonzo who had been left out of the loop about the emergency hideaway, but was still safe with the survivors group. Spyke went over to a nearby broken pillar and took a seat in front of it. Several tiny super sea snails came out from behind it and surrounded him, all very happy to see him.

"Have you seen Agent 3 or our grandpa? Captain Cuttlefish, I mean," Marie requested, aware that Spyke said there was no old man in this hideout. However, there were so many things that could describe their grandfather other than just old. Callie put their weapons maker down, seeing him scratch his shell.

"Sorry, Squid Sisters, but I haven't seen Cuttlefish or Agent 3 since the zombies appeared," Sheldon apologized. The looks on their faces showed how disappointed they were, which hurt the short merchant's heart. Suddenly, Callie had an idea.

"Sheldon, do you have anything that can break through thick ice?" she questioned. He thought over it for a while. He had a lot of his weapons still down here. He reached into the backpack on his back and pulled out a slosher weapon, handing it over.

"Activate the special and you'll be good to go! Would you like us to come help with whatever you're doing?" Sheldon extended the offer to help. The Squid Sisters shook their heads.

"We have it under control! If we're right, grandpa and Agent 3 will be down there," Marie reassured they would be alright.

"G'luck, loves," Spyke said, watching the Squid Sisters go on back the way they came the two of them, completely determined to break through the ice and get into Octo Valley, and pray to heaven that their best friend and grandfather would be hiding there, but if they weren't, then the two really had no clue where to go from there. For now, Octo Valley awaited them, and they were going to do whatever it took to get into it and find the ones close to them.


	7. Octo Valley

**Authors Note: I hope you all are enjoying the fic so far, though I have to give a forewarning that the fic is only a few chapters away from being done. I hope you all enjoy it, oh and special thanks to KitKattAttack, for helping me with an issue.**

Callie and Marie had waited thirty minutes at the very hatch they had entered through to get to the old plaza underground, preparing themselves and passing time briefly before they sprung into their plan to get into Octo Valley. They were trying to shove the horrible possible scenarios out of their heads. If their closest loved ones were in Octo Valley as zombies, they could cure them, but if the zombies had somehow wandered into something dangerous, it was going to be a disaster.

"Why are we bothering? We should go back to base and take it easy. What's one or two lives, anyway?" that voice rung out in Callie's head. She shook her head immediately, only thinking to shut the sarcastic voice up. Ever since her cousin had given her the ring and they had traded reassurances, the voice had been slightly quieter, which she took as a great thing. She felt her hand get grabbed, looking down to see Marie's gloved hand with the ring on her finger prominently sticking out.

"Everyone will be fine. Don't worry," Marie smiled. She looked and felt completely different since the zombies appeared. Laziness was not the most reliable thing in this scenario, so she had to shake that off. There would be plenty of time for vacations and rests once they got this all handled, they both had to remind each other that quite often.

"I know…" Callie nodded, before being hugged by her cousin.

"I love you…" Marie said. Her dear cousin smiled before returning the warm embrace. After a brief moment, the two broke apart and made for the ladder back to the alley beside the coffee shop. When they popped up, they could see one standing zombie octoling with its back turned, staring brightly at an old poster advertising fire flower flavored ice cream.

"I got him," Callie reached up and grabbed the ankles of the zombie. The octopi looked down before being pulled into the hatch and tossed down with a loud thud. The zombie sat up, groaning at them, until it got splattered by a blast from Marie's charger, exploding the octo-zombie into a puddle of green ink. They only had done that to make sure no other zombies could see them doing this and would not be drawn by the ink color. With that one splattered, they both climbed out and slowly made their way out of the alley. There were at least twenty zombies in the main plaza now, all of which had emerged overtime from the Squid Sisters' first appearance.

"Uh oh… they saw us. You'd better hurry and bust that pipe open," Marie insisted. Callie had the krak-on roller and the slosher. The white inkling stepped up and aimed her charger. The zombies were starting to notice them in only a couple of seconds as they began to approach. She fired a fully charged shot, hitting two zombies and splattering them instantly.

Callie quickly approached the entrance to Octo Valley, seeing it trapped by the ice. She pulled the slosher bucket off her side and hit the button on it to try and activate the special ability, but nothing happened. Callie gulped, taking in a breath trying to stay calm.

"Callie! They may be slow, but I'm running low on ink!" Marie requested her cousin to hurry up. Chargers unfortunately took a large volume of ink to use, and they were not meant to be so close in the action, but to support their team from afar, but zombies changed turf war rules dramatically.

"I'm, uh… I'm trying…!" Callie began to whimper, losing her nerve easily. She kept hitting the button, but each press failed to activate the special mode on it.

"Just give up and run. Marie is distracting the zombies. You can get away and save your own skin while they start biting her…" that voice spoke once more. This time, the words angered her. The idea of abandoning her own cousin tore every nerve in her head. She growled, pulling her head back.

"Shut up!" she slammed her head into the slosher, causing a nasty bruise, the button being hit. Suddenly, the slosher changed into an inkzooka on her shoulder.

"Ow… wow!" Callie was shocked, but delighted. The hard blow had fixed it, somehow, which she didn't question. Callie quickly aimed and fired thrice at the ice covered grate. The first hit of bright purple ink caused it to crack a little. The second made it crack all over. At last, the third caused shards of ice to explode. The newly formed pool of purple ink then started drawing the attention of the zombies quite a bit.

"There's too many now. We can't just leave them here…" Marie stated, not wanting to leave a horde of zombies on top of the old plaza where nearly every merchant available was. The white inkling hit a button on her splatterscope, activating its special ability, which they knew as bomb rush. She began to toss out a barrage of triangular bombs filled with green ink. The zombies noticed these, falling around them and trying to grab the explosives to cover the ink with theirs. The bombs detonated, splattering a good half of the horde.

"Let me help!" Callie fired the inkzooka, blasting another wave of the zombies away. The Squid Sisters began to back up to the Octo Valley entrance. More zombies kept coming, all because they were firing off so much ink, though they had thinned out the horde by a longshot. Marie knew they had done enough here, and she approached her cousin, seeing her Inkzooka revert back into a slosher that clattered on the ground.

"Come on. We've been waiting to get back into Octo Valley for a year now," Marie reminded with a grin, showing her sharp teeth. She stood on top of the grate of the pipe, turning into a small white squid and slipping between the bars, Callie changing into a black squid with big tentacles before following behind her. At this point, they should both be safe, since the zombies, mindless as they could be, seemed to only rarely use their alternate forms with their grey ink.

The Squid Sisters fell through the pipe. A long spiral of twists and turns had passed, until they were tossed upwards and popped out in Octo Valley, both of them changing out of their squid forms and crashing into the ground below. They had thankfully landed in more snow. Octo Valley was visibly the same as Inkopolis, when comparing their weathers anyway.

"Oops… sorry, Marie," Callie apologized, having landed on top of her cousin. She climbed off her back, hearing her cousin let out a small painful groan while she forced herself back onto her feet.

"My back's killing me now…" Marie muttered, rubbing her back. Octo Valley was always weird like that. Somewhere in this area, hidden from most of Inkopolis, was the entrance to the octolings' home city, but neither Agent 1 or Agent 2 had a clue where it was. None of the agents did. Since they defeated the octarian leader, there was no reason to go find it. Peace between the two races had been kept safe in secrecy. However, this situation was a lot different. Callie and Marie knew that once Inkopolis was cured, they had to help the octarians reclaim their home, since the octopi seemed to have lost their home city long before the inklings did, and the few that did not had made for Inkopolis for safety, or had been cured from their infection.

"Come on. We should start searching," Callie insisted. Octo Valley's entrance looked normal so far, with just with a blanket of white over it. But before they knew it, red lines of light were aimed right on them from many directions.

"That is a lot of chargers…" Marie said, she and Callie putting up their hands and tentacles to show they meant no harm, leaving their weapons on their backs. After a brief few minutes, the beams of light were off of them. They saw two octolings come out of hiding, with Tentatek splattershots in their hands.

"The Squid Sisters? Well, this is the first time I'm happy to see something fall from that pipe," the male octarian said, a little too eager to be talking about the pipe. Sadly, zombies used to occasionally fall over into this area, until the pipe was frozen shut by mother nature's icy breath.

"Oh… you know us?" Callie quirked, wondering if Octo Valley was inhabited by the octarians. The Squid Sisters were indeed agents, but there was no way that the octolings, having been brainwashed during their secretive war, could have known that.

"Yeah! You two are huge in Coralic City!" the female octoling smiled, grabbing the Squid Sisters' hands and dragging them along, the other octarian following. Whoever those chargers that had been watching them were, they could be presumed to be guardians of one of the entrances to Octo Valley.

"Coralic City? What's that?" Marie quirked. She never had heard of this place, but she guessed it was the octarians' homeland that none of the agents had ever bothered to find since the war ended.

"That's our city. We got forced to evacuate when others started puking out grey stuff and biting each other," the male octoling chuckled, acting like this was a fun game to him. The Squid Sisters were happy to at least be well known in multiple cities outside of Inkopolis.

"So where are you taking us?" Callie and Marie asked in accidental unison. They wanted to just find their best friend and their grandfather, but knowing that octarians were mostly filled into Octo Valley, it somewhere plagued their minds in worry. Both of the octolings looked to one another with big smiles. It was as though they knew a lot more about the Squid Sisters than they let on.

"To our group's leader, of course!"


	8. Reunited

Callie and Marie had followed the two octolings through Octo Valley, in a direction that they had never explored before. They were wandering past destroyed kettles which were normally the ways through to other areas of Octo Valley, yet they appeared to have just been destroyed by age, so it was safe to assume they had not worked since the great turf wars decades ago.

"It's just up ahead," one of the octolings spoke excitedly. The Squid Sisters were just happy to be in a place that seemed free of zombies, the snow had frozen most entrances to Octo Valley so the infected squids and octopi fell down the pipes less often. Callie felt Marie holding her hand once more she looked down with a smile at her ring, the black squid not complaining though both of their gazes were brought to what they saw at the end of this path.

"Here we are… Tentilium's Survivor Reef!" the guiding octopus spoke up, presenting a huge hidden village that appeared relatively new, probably less than five years old. There was a sliding wooden gate with inklings and octopi acting as guards to the entrance. They seemed all too happy to see the Squid Sisters and the other octolings, to the point that it was giving the two cousins great worry, but they kept following along, the wooden gate being pushed open by several of the guards, some of them saluting Agent 1 and Agent 2 as they passed the wooden gate, which then closed behind them in a split second.

"Head to the gathering hall, you're wanted there. It's in the center up ahead," the first octoling said, before the two of them left. Callie and Marie looked to each other, taking a quick glance around. This entire village had water running through it, the water running at a strong torrent. However, they also noticed steam come from the streams. The hot water was running through only small drains on the stone underneath their feet.

The Squid Sisters followed along the street, seeing various inklings and octolings who were working hard, some carrying food, others building new shelters, and some working at a water cooling pump. They saw one inkling who approached the water pump, the red handle wrapped in an interesting material. The inkling grabbed it and pushed it forward, with a small cup placed underneath the faucet.

"Ohh…" Callie said, easily amazed, seeing the handle emit a burst of steam before the cup was filled with the now cold water, the inkling just drinking away while returning to his regular business.

"Callie, that's about as impressive as wind up clams…" Marie said, not too impressed as she just continued ahead. She had to come back to drag her dear cousin along before she was tempted to try out the cooling water pump. It seemed that these pumps were set up all over the village with the steaming water running through it. The steam itself seemed to offer a very warm atmosphere to the town.

They arrived to the center building. There was no door to go in through, but just simply two red curtains dangling in front of both sides. They decided to just head inside. This was supposed to be the gathering hall, according to the octarians from earlier, and they were wanted here for some reason.

"Huh… so this is what a gathering hall looks like," Callie spoke up. She never had really been in one before. This gathering hall had a more spherical design to it. Row after row of steps were set up that looked big enough to double as seats. However, more steaming water was running between the cracks, all of which led to a waterfall in the center of the room, which hot water was running from. This area of Octo Valley had a great spring within it, and the constructor of the village knew dearly well how to put it to use while building.

"Hey, there's something on the floor," Marie reached down. It was a piece of paper, the back of it written that it was addressed to the two of them. They both were confused by this, turning the paper around to find an odd riddle.

"What band does not perform, act or sing?" the riddle read. The Squid Sisters both gained smiles of great comfort and relief. They recognized the handwriting, and they knew only one person with a hobby of writing riddles. This definitely was the work of their dear friend.

"That's easy! A rubber band," Callie answered. Marie nodded. They had dealt with hundreds of riddles before. They both suddenly felt two arms and tentacles wrap around their necks, pulling them into a tight hug.

"Callie! Marie!" they heard that all too familiar voice, both of them reaching as well and hugging the inkling.

"Iris!" they both yelled in glee. It was no dream. Iris, Agent 3, was here. She was roughly their age, and had long purple tentacles tied into braids and dangling off the side of her head with a blue tinge at the end. She was wearing a pink sweater that had a sunflower with a scary face printed on it, and she also had a yellow headband on her forehead that read, "Riddle Party Master", though they recognized that she had a pacifier dangling around her neck on a chain. Iris had only become an agent after the Squid Sisters' grandfather found her at a vending machine by the entrance to Octo Valley, since it had been rejecting her money, she naturally resorted to breaking the vending machine open and stealing the goodies she wanted. Thankfully their captain had saved her from an arrest record.

"Where have you two been all this time? It's been like… three months?" Iris questioned. She loved to party, but for some reason adored riddles more, which Callie and Marie had solved so many. It was hard to be down whenever Agent 3 was around. Somehow she was always full of energy, even in the middle of the night.

"Iris, it's been over a year," Marie corrected.

"Oh…! How many birthday parties did I miss? Or parties in general? Or is this a zombie party now and we're all that's left of the city? Forced to reproduce with each other's tentacles?" Iris rambled on. Callie just stared at her. Her mind tended to wander too far off. She loved any excuse to celebrate, yet oddly enough she was not a party animal. The purple inkling just liked to be around crowds for some reason. They made her feel relaxed, as much as she knew it had the opposite effect on the Squid Sisters.

"N-no! I don't have plans to have a child for another ten years," Callie retorted, her cousin patting her back, trying to get her to relax. They barely had their eyes off Agent 3 for a second and that pacifier was in the purple squid's mouth like she had gotten bored. She had told them that it was her method for comfort ever since she was five. They didn't question it, since she was their friend after all.

"Can we please not bring up tentacle reproduction?" Marie requested. Any female inkling could get pregnant by another person's tentacles, yet not their own for some reason. What Agent 3 had brought up the Squid Sisters did not want to know or try anytime soon. Agent 3 nodded, taking her pacifier out and just letting it dangle off its chain.

"Please, Iris… tell us grandpa is here," Callie brought up the burning question on the two's minds. She nodded with a bright smile.

"Yeah! Though I wish you hadn't changed topics. I had a surprise to announce… I'll take you to him and show you the surprises there," Iris immediately darted off. The Squid Sisters both looked mentally drained already. They preferred it when their friend gave them riddles instead of talk about reproductive systems or any odd topic similar. The Squid Sisters hurried off to follow along, as they wound up chasing Iris outside and running through the snow, all of their feet leaving long, great trails of footprints behind in the snow.

Thirty minutes was spent of nothing but running, Marie had a feeling that Iris had led them in circles and all over the village during the run. They had finally come to a stop, and Callie instantly fell on the snowy ground, trying to catch her breath, her cousin sitting beside her, their legs feeling like melting jelly.

"You two used to be a lot more fit. How lazy have you been while zombies take over?" Iris questioned while they stood outside of a shelter.

"They aren't taking over. We've become more leaders than fighters, but we still fight with those we lead," Marie explained, annoyed. That sentence alone was quite complex to their dear friend, but she smiled anyway and did not argue, Callie sitting up after finally getting some energy back.

"Come on. The captain is inside. I think his naptime was over an hour ago," Iris motioned them to follow her. She creaked open the wooden door and stepped in, the Squid Sisters helping each other back onto their feet before following her inside. It was one of many shelters in the village for housing instead of individual homes. Everyone here shared the same two story buildings. They could see octolings and inklings, old and young. However, Callie felt something hug her leg. She gained a huge smile when she looked down to see who it was.

"Judd!" Callie picked up the anthropomorphic cat off the floor. Judd was the judge of turf wars. His white and black fur was in the shape of suspenders, and he had a pointy tail.

"Girls! I thought you were zombies!" Judd cried. He missed them for the longest of time. They had gotten separated a year ago. The turf war judge had run off for the nearest shelter he could when zombies emerged, but sadly the Squid Sisters had different plans in mind when zombies first appeared, so they got separated with ease.

"I didn't think you'd be here of all places," Marie admitted while scratching the cat's head behind his left ear, hearing him purr. It was his favorite place to be scratched. Callie was happy to hold their pet friend in her arms. It felt great to feel his fur again. Her cousin was trying to contain her own excitement, but in actuality, this was a huge reassurance to their efforts of saving Inkopolis finally paying off, by being reunited with their family and loved ones.

"Come on. The captain is upstairs," Iris insisted to come along. Callie put Judd down, letting the obese cat follow them, aware there was much to discuss and catch up about. The group of four headed upstairs some more. The octarians and inklings they passed by happily waved or welcomed them, almost like seeing two famous idols holding their own in this zombie infested snow land restored hope in them. To see so many survivors and having the cure was plenty to keep the Squid Sisters' spirits high. They all made their way upstairs.

"There he is," Iris smiled, pointing out the all too familiar elderly bearded inkling in a captain's hat with a cane resting beside him, and in a nice warmer coat that some of the octarians gladly stitched for him. He was holding a blobbie, a newly hatched octoling, feeding him a bottle. When he took notice of the Squid Sisters shortly after their arrival, he was baffled.

"Are my eyes finally going bad? Callie? Marie? Is that you?" Captain Cuttlefish asked while coming to them. Marie had a bright smile, while Callie sniffled, looking ready to break down into tears on the spot. The relief was all just too much for her heart. Both of them hugged their grandfather, Iris taking the blobbie from the elder inklings arms and taking over the feeding duty. Judd and Agent 3 were happy at the scene before them. It was a family reunited after so long.

"We have a lot to talk about."


	9. Slow

Callie and Marie had spent the next few hours with their loved ones, discussing all that had been going on over the course of the year since they had all last seen each other. Iris was rocking the blobbie in her arms, looking quite happy. All the stories being shared however sounded either silly or scary.

"But back when things started, me and cappy here were noticing tons of octolings fleeing Octo Valley and abandoning their home town of Coralic City. The rest brought us to this village that apparently was built five years ago by some paranoid guy who was preparing for the end of the world. Needless to say, he was not disappointed," Iris explained what had become of her and Captain Cuttlefish. The elder inkling looked annoyed at the nickname cappy, but he accepted it, since it was not the worst out of the hundreds of nicknames he had over the years.

"I won't deny, girls, if it hadn't been for Iris, I'd have been out there searching for ya, even if I was a grey monster," Captain Cuttlefish smiled, remembering the fight between them that ended when Agent 3 tied him up and forcibly carried him off to safety. They were confused by that statement. Iris was their best friend, yet it was odd of her to not volunteer with Captain Cuttlefish to join in that search in a zombie infested Inkopolis.

"Why didn't you try and come after us?" Marie requested, still wondering why the purple squid had a blobbie seemingly in her care.

"Oh… sorry. I was scared and every octarian was panicking, so I thought me and cappy could lead them to a better life. So far, we've done exactly that. But zombies still sneak into the valley on accident a lot, so we have guards set up at each entrance to Octo Valley," Iris described what they had been up to over the course of the year. The winter weather at least slowed down the zombies and made everyone's works easier.

"Well, at least you kept grandpa safe… we owe you a lot for just that," Callie happily said, just glad to be with her completed family again, even if it was quite small in size compared to most families. Iris nodded, thankful to be acknowledged in that sense, though she still had one thing to surprise her best friends with.

"Oh, which reminds me… I need to introduce you guys to my son. Meet… Oczito!" Iris said, presenting the blobbie in her arms. The little guy was half awake, looking ready to take a nap and then another good few hours of sleep after that. The Squid Sisters were very surprised to hear that Iris, of all people, had a child. She was the last person they expected to be a mother anytime soon.

"Wo-wow! When did you…?" Marie stuttered. The blobbie did not look more than a few months old at most.

"Congratulations! Oh, if I could I'd be planning a celebration already!" Callie exclaimed, hugging Iris. The little blobbie Oczito got a little squished between them, though he paid it no mind and tried to get some more rest while being held.

"Hehe… that's why I love you two. You always know what I'm thinking!" Iris gleefully responded. The only thing the two could not read her mind about was those riddles she made up or when her brain went off track with thought processes. She tended to ramble quite often. The captain decided to explain for them to make sense of things.

"Well, squiddos… y'see, that little guy's mother laid his egg about a week after zombies started popping up. I think everything happening at once overwhelmed her, and she kind of lost her mind," Captain Cuttlefish remembered Oczito's real parent. They had no clue who his father was, so they could not just go requesting his help, and since there was no more child protective services to be called in. Iris stepped up to take responsibility, unsure with all others whether or not his real mothers' mental state would recover.

"Well… congrats, anyway. I feel a lot more comfortable knowing you can be so responsible," Marie claimed, having not expected this from Iris. She did feel bad for the tiny blobbie's mom, though the white inkling could not imagine what it was like to be under such stress and laying an egg during the chaos of it all. It must have destroyed her mind a lot worse than anyone could describe.

"Thanks! He'll be a riddle master too when he grows up. Just you watch" Iris grinned, the Squid Sisters trying to ignore the statement as they had solved tons of riddles from her as well. Marie pulled one of the four rainbow elixir bottles they had with them from her pocket. She rested it on the table, allowing the captain and Iris to notice it, confused.

"That bottle of soda looks like it'd poison whoever drinks it... Can I have a sip?" Iris requested, though Oczito was sucking on the pacifier that was dangling around his adoptive mother's neck by the chain. Iris though did not care about sharing it, so she often didn't notice.

"You don't have to worry about poisoning," Marie groaned, dismissing any worries for this to be poison in a bottle.

"It's actually the cure for the zombie infection. It tastes nasty, though it is nutritious. Marie and I have been leading what was left of Inkopolis and the octolings who came into it. We take back one area at a time while curing any infected within that area," Callie added, explaining how they had become leaders, just like their beloved grandfather and best friend had become themselves. It also explained how so many octarians wound up in Inkopolis fleeing from Coralic City for any hope of safety when they were starting to become infected, and the infection was carried to the city of squids.

"I'll be… the cure?! …wow… my little grandsquids have made me proud…" Captain Cuttlefish lifted his glasses up, wiping a nonexistent tear out of his eye.

"That's a relief. I was kinda getting bored of Octo Valley," Iris smiled. Octo Valley was a lovely place with many sights to behold, but with zombies roaming around, she could not enjoy them.

"We've cured at least a couple thousand squids. Sadly, Inkopolis is the most populated city around, so we've kind of been forced to take it slow. But at the rate things are going, in a year, we should have half of the city back," Marie elaborated. Still, no one was happy, and she knew how many survivors the Squid Sisters had at their base who wanted to just charge around the city blindly and blast the cure at anything grey, but they were always able to convince those squids and octopi that it was best to handle this great turf war smartly.

"So our biggest problem now is not the grey monsters running around in two cities. It's time that's in our way?" Iris questioned, the others nodding.

"Yes. I know how that feels like. Time is the only way to win a battle. Waiting for backup to come with no way to rest, and always having to be careful… I've been in that situation all too often," Captain Cuttlefish said. He had many stories he had from the great turf wars in his youthful days, that he tried to turn the war experience into a positive thing by using them as examples to teach his grandsquid's life lessons.

"Well, we do our best with the help of our friends… but truth be told, grandpa, we snuck here without alerting anyone," Marie admitted truthfully, feeling guilt in her heart for having not just brought a small splatoon of troops with them in secret. Thankfully, seeing their grandfather again seemed to have suppressed that sarcastic voice in Callie's head quite drastically. She was happy to know this, and that the Squid Sisters personal mission was a huge success.

"I had a hunch you two were not exactly planning to come to the survivor reef," Captain Cuttlefish was proud of them nonetheless. To him, there was no such thing as great leaders without great mistakes.

"Is there anything we can do with this cure?" Iris asked. When Callie looked at her to answer, she had a bright smile. The blobbie in her arms had finally fallen asleep and was snug against her chest. This was a sight the Squid Sisters would have to get used to.

"So far, we've just been producing as much of it we can. Fall and winter have made it harder to get all the ingredients for it, but we still manage. Just pour a bottle in the ink tank, and you got enough to cure a lot of infected before needing to refill," Marie explained. She had watched this cure be created time and time again as one of the leaders of the biggest survivor group. It was her and Callie's duty to at least learn the recipe, but they took it a step further and memorized it. Well Marie memorized most of it, yet barely recalled that her cousin might have been half awake during those cure making sessions.

"No, no… I said is there anything WE can do with it?" Iris grinned, almost assuring she wanted to do something insane to solve their problems. Agent 3's heart was in the right place, yet her mind wasn't up to speed with her heart.

"Oh, dear Iris, we do the same thing my grandsquids have been doing. We just help them with the cure efforts. Once we get Inkopolis back, we will help the octarians get Coralic City back," Captain Cuttlefish said. Agent 3 was full of determination to go through with this idea, and that made Agent 1 and Agent 2 feel concerned. Something was brewing in that purple girl's brain, and it was either really good or really bad.

"Cappy! Come on! We can do so much more with this cure to speed up this whole slow deal! Who knows what could happen if we keep going so slow," Agent 3 stated, her adopted son fully asleep in her arms. Captain Cuttlefish wondered where she was going with this.

"What do you mean? The zombies are slow and dumb, and they can only really bite you if you aren't paying attention. The only real threat is if you get caught in corners or dead ends. Even then you can splatter dozens of them easily," Marie argued.

"Marie is right. What are you trying to say, Iris?" Callie requested. Iris however had almost begun sucking on her pacifier again like it was going to help her think better. She just let it dangle around her neck once more.

"What do diseases do? They evolve with time. Every day we're running the risk of it changing. What if his infection turns some poor grey squid into a huge raging kraken and it becomes resistant to the cure?!" Iris exclaimed in her variously changing tones of excitement. That was a dreadful thought that had crossed their minds. However, the Squid Sisters already had discussed this again that they had a plan for it.

"Look, I doubt there will ever be such a thing as an infection that improves your physical health. But all the survivors agreed that if the cure begins to become ineffective, we just will trap all infected until the cure can be improved," Callie explained. It would be another easy job, considering how slow and dumb the grey monsters were.

"I do understand your impatience, Iris, but I assure you my grandsquids have it under control, but if there was a way to do it any faster and safer, they would have done it already… although…" Captain Cuttlefish tried to talk, agreeing with his grandchildren when he had an idea hit him. Thinking about it, there may just be a very way to cure all of Inkopolis, but it was going to be far from easy.

"What is it, grandpa?" Callie asked, recognizing that thinking face very easily.

"Well… I believe there may actually be a way to save Inkopolis lickety-split. However, squiddos, we'll need quite a lot of the cure and even more help than that," Captain Cuttlefish said with a bright smile. Iris had a great grin, fully on board with whatever he had in mind, and just like that, he was discussing the entire plan with them. Callie and Marie were not really believing what they were hearing, but it steadily started to sound like a great idea. It seemed like they might be able to cure all of Inkopolis even quicker, and once they did that, they will help cure Coralic City as well so that everyone could return back to their normal lives.


	10. Call

Daylight had arrived at the survivors' primary base, and over the course of the night, the huge group of recently recruited survivors cleansed of their infection, aided in the extension of the wall to surround Eelectric Avenue and Pufferfish Park. Sadly, they had to take most of the power away from the rides available in the theme park. If one was turned on, the bright colors could draw the attention of so many zombies in the general area.

Octung was walking through the snowy survivors' extension. She did not get much sleep last night, all because the Squid Sisters went missing and so did one of their vans. It worried the octoling girl, but she had to put hope in her friends strongly, believing that the two of them could make it back safely wherever they went. Thankfully, the scarred octarian was given power to be a leader in case Callie and Marie were absent, and she had voted to not attempt and take back any area of Inkopolis today, and instead spend a day resting.

"Oh, for the love of… hey you two," the then irritated Octung noticed and greeted Emerald and Beige, who were in their squid forms and cuddled together with a pair of headphones on their sides, listening to music, but since they only had one headset, they decided to share. They got apart before changing back into their inkling forms.

"What? You told us to relax," Emerald reminded, not liking their octoling friend's tone of voice.

"So any signs of Callie or Marie yet?" Beige requested, attempting to keep her calm. Octung rubbed her eyes, showing her deprivation of sleep and energy from that whole night.

"No… they're still missing," Octung shook her head. It did nothing but make them even more worried. They had grown close and began to consider them great friends after all they had been through. Suddenly, they all began to hear a jingly tune.

"What is that?" Emerald quirked in confusion, Octung reaching her pocket rummaging around for something.

"Sorry, cellphone," she apologized while putting it to her ear.

"Wait… our phones work?! Why didn't someone tell me?! I chucked mine at a zombie like four months ago!" Emerald's jaw dropped at the realization.

"Did you think just because there were zombies, the phone lines automatically went down?" Beige retorted to his best friend, only to be tackled into the snowy ground, leaving a print of himself on it as he landed back first.

"Hello?" answered Octung.

"Octung! Hey, great timing! We really could use a hand," Callie happily spoke out, having not realized how many times Octung had tried to call them before.

"I knew you two were somehow getting into trouble… what's wrong?" she requested while ignoring the two boys squabbling and wrestling on the ground.

"We need you to gather all the survivors available, as well as every last drop of the cure we have made. And head to the main plaza," Callie exclaimed.

"What? And risk all the survivors we can spare? What is going on?! Why would we risk our survivors, and the cure? It is not exactly easy to make this time of year!" Octung requested, fear coming out of her voice.

"We have a chance to cure all of Inkopolis tonight! Just do it, please… If anything starts to go wrong, we can instantly abandon the plan, but if this goes right, that means we can help get Coralic City back, too," Callie pleaded hoping her friend would give the order and not declare their primary leaders had gone insane but she doubted that the octarian would do that at all

"Fine… but this better work. Each day zombies are around, is another part of my mind gone…" Octung rubbed her forehead. She loved Inkopolis, though she wished she had gotten to experience it more without zombie apocalypse in the way, but Coralic City was her hometown. She was worried about her friends and family who had been left there, though it was safe to assume they had been infected and turned into grey mindless puppets in the confusion of it all.

"Well you were a zombie for…" Callie tried to remind her.

"I know! …I'll get everything prepared. Goodbye, Callie," Octung hung up. It felt like an eternity before she had been cured. The worst part was that she could not describe it as an agonizing experience. Being a zombie took away all emotions and left one to wander with the only desire to cover up any other color ink with grey. It was impossible to feel pain, and she never recalled a single time being hungry or thirsty while infected. None of the cured octarians and inklings did. The leader octoling shook her head, breaking her chain of thought. She approached the two still fighting inklings on the ground, kicking Emerald off of Beige.

"Oof! What was that for?" Emerald asked, holding his side in pain.

"Go around and get all the survivors available ready, and get the vehicles prepared. Also, gather up every last drop of the cure we have available and put it in the best containers," she simply ordered.

"Huh? What's going on?" Beige wondered as he stood up, worried as he watched their friend begin to walk away to do her job in preparations.

"Nothing big. Just the chance to take all of Inkopolis back," Octung flatly replied before walking away. Emerald looked at his best friend with a huge grin.

"Pleaaase tell me we can use the special vehicle?" the green inkling begged, looking ready to go on his knees for it. Beige was still just stunned at what Octung just said. He hoped this was no joke, as no one would make such a joke in poor taste in this day and age. He thought it over for a second and shrugged.

"Sure. It might be our only chance to drive it anyway," Beige wandered off to get the vehicles ready. Emerald rushing off to begin gathering all the cure they had available. The three of them were going to tell every survivor in here to get ready, and announce the news of Inkopolis's slim chance of revitalization.

Callie and Marie stood on a higher ledge with railing on it that overviewed the main plaza. None of the wandering zombies noticed the two of them at all. They tended to keep a straight view and could only search areas visually if they had a target to aim for before.

"I cannot believe we are going to try and do this…" Marie sighed rubbing her head seeing her cousin just looking down at the ring on her gloved hand they had just been watching the zombies bored while the others waited in the survivors base in Octo Valley.

"Well, Marie, it's not much different from one our normal days, except this small area of Coralic City we take back will get all of Inkopolis back," Callie smiled. Marie could not deny that when spoke like that, it sounded like the mission that could be one of their last, and that made it sound even better. They continued watching over the plaza from their high vantage point.

"Hey, look at that one," Marie pointed to one zombie squid in particular that was lying in the snow. They saw him stand up, taking two baby steps before abruptly tripping face first into the snow once more.

"Is… is that zombie drunk?" Callie quirked. Just when she thought these infected squids could not get any weirder, this one almost seemed intoxicated. But after his fourth fall, the grey inkling did not get up, instead he was laying on his side with his eyes closed, like he had fallen asleep. Callie felt that the zombie looked cute, somewhat like a young squishie taking a nap in the snow.

"Well… you see something new every day," Marie commented. They had been waiting for a couple of hours now, only to act as lookouts for their survivor group. They would be able to see them from a mile away, at least with how huge their group had become.

"Hey, look at that," Marie pointed to the truck that was blocking the entrance to the main plaza. The zombies around it suddenly had been splattered, leaving behind various colors of ink puddles. They saw one octoling who climbed into the truck. After a few seconds, they could hear the engine starting after it had been hot wired.

"Looks like our teams here," Callie smiled brightly. However, they both became stunned when the vehicle got pulled away after one minute, and a firetruck rolled into the main plaza. Emerald was driving it with Beige in the passenger seat. The Inkopolis fire engines were normal for the most part, but this one had a special thing to it. Normally there would be a ladder on top of it. Instead, it had a water cannon with a small carousal on the back and a grand load of tanks on it that were filled with several ink colors.

"Ohhh… this is going to be good!" Callie had a big grin. Marie felt unsafe, knowing Emerald was behind the wheel. The fire truck come to a halt, and suddenly all of the zombies in the plaza began to approach, moaning and groaning, having seen the ink being held by the containers in the fire truck. There were a lot more than they realized coming out from hiding as well.

"Oh jeez…! We need to help," Marie insisted, getting her charger off her back.

"Wait, Marie, they'll be fine. Look here," her cousin shook her head, assuming the rest of the survivors would not be too far behind, and she referred to the ink cannon on the trick. Octung was behind the controls of the former water cannon. She grabbed the controls with a grin before opening fire, spraying out the rainbow of ink. The zombies hit by it were knocked back viciously before being splattered. The ink cannon packed quite the punch. The Squid Sisters recalled this firetruck which they had stored away with the other vehicles in case of emergencies. They had no idea why their friends were using it, but considering the circumstances, they did not care.

Five brief minutes passed. All of the zombies around had been splattered. The main plaza was clear, and survivors were beginning to come together right in the Inkopolis plaza. A lot of the inklings looked overjoyed to be back to his very familiar place, ignoring the mess of snow and ink around them. The many splattered zombies did not detour the bright cheerful mood either. The battle tower was almost like a beacon to remind everyone that soon, they might yet be able to fight in turf wars again. The octarians might even agree to a peace treaty, after this rough year where everyone had to work together to survive.

"Well… we have a lot to discuss with them. Come on, let's lead the squad to the octolings' survivor base," Marie said. Her dear cousin nodded before following her down the side ramp to get down to the main plaza, wanting to meet up with their friends. They had to go over the plan that Captain Cuttlefish came up with. This could be the grand opportunity to save Inkopolis in less than a few days.


	11. Gathering

Marie and Callie had led Octung, Emerald, Beige, and the entire survivor group to the other survivors' village in Octo Valley. Once inside, everyone seemed to be in great joy. A lot of the octarian survivors from the Squid Sisters' group were finding familiar friends or family members. It was a heartwarming scene to watch, a great reward to see that their efforts were never in vain.

"Alright! Everyone who wants to be briefed about the plan right now, head to the gathering hall!" Callie called out. The survivors heard her and understood. Though everyone wanted to go right away, there were some inklings in the Octo Valley survivor base after all, so naturally, some squids were looking for missing loved ones, though it was understandable. However, while the Squid Sisters had their back turned, the familiar Iris, who had come out of nowhere, snuck up behind them, their three friends looking surprised at her.

"Hi, Callie! Hi, Marie!" Iris chimed, making the famous idols leap in surprise before they turned around, shocked. They were wishing they were used to this by now. Agent 3 was unintentionally scary at times.

"Iris! You almost gave me a heart attack…" Marie said while rubbing her head, feeling embarrassed to have been scared like that, their other friends stepping forward.

"You're Iris? We've heard a lot about you! I'm Octung, and this is Beige and Emerald," Octung introduced herself, offering her hand to be shaken. Iris pulled her into a hug instead. The Squid Sisters were just letting introductions get done.

"Hey would you guys like a riddle?" Iris offered. They looked to their leaders in confusion, Callie making a hand motion to suggest to them to say yes. Marie had a small grin, eager to see how they handled the riddle their best friend had in mind for them, though they assumed that Iris had left her son in the care of someone else for the time being.

"Err… sure," Emerald agreed, his best friend nodding with a confident smile.

"Gladly," Beige added. Iris stretched and played with her own two tentacles, quickly coming up with a riddle for them.

"There are eighteen crows in a tree. You fire an inkzooka at the tree and hit seven crows and knock them to the ground. How many crows are left?" Iris spoke. The riddle sounded like a very simple math test, but as often as the Squid Sisters had solved her riddles before, they knew there was more to this. Iris lived up to the riddle master title that her headband gladly read.

"You each get one chance to answer," Iris added.

"Hah! That's easy. All eighteen would be left," Emerald immediately spoke, thinking the riddle's trick was to make them not count the ink blasted crows.

"Eleven, obviously…" Beige held the bridge of his nose, irritated by his greatest friend's idiocy. Emerald did not exactly have a good track record with his IQ whenever it was tested.

"Sorry, you're both wrong," Iris shook her head. It stunned the duo who both believed to have solved it with the simplest of ease. Octung was still thinking over this, and the rest waited.

"Hmm… Inkzookas are loud, and a tree would shake. It would definitely scare off the crows, so there would be none left at all," Octung spoke out her logic resulting from the train of thought.

"Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh! You're right!" Iris exclaimed gleefully, reaching into her pockets and throwing shredded variously colored paper over Octung like congratulatory confetti. The Squid Sisters were very impressed. Normally Agent 3's puzzles threw most for a loop, and most had to think out of the box to solve them, because sometimes the answer would be so nonsensical that it would drive some insane.

"Well, now that you all have met Agent 3, let's go to the gathering hall. Grandpa's waiting there," Marie insisted. Captain Cuttlefish was waiting for them, and the many other survivors from the groups were making their way to the gathering hall to also hear the plan, while others just stayed behind and could be caught up to speed later if they needed it. The group nodded, following the Inkopolis idols forward to the gathering hall. Iris skipped happily, Beige looking to her with a suspicious face. Even he described her as weird.

At the gathering hall, the many squids and octopi were taking their seats on the stone steps, quickly filling up the room. Captain Cuttlefish was in the center of the gathering hall, maps were spread out and set up from bits and pieces. Octung, Emerald, Beige and Iris went and took their own seats, Callie and Marie going up to join their grandfather to explain the plan in full detail to everyone if they had to. A silent atmosphere began for a moment when everyone got settled in their seats, all eyes set on the three of them.

"Wow, squiddos… you got quite the splatoon here," the elder inkling commented.

"Oh, this isn't everyone. A good chunk of them are outside mingling with their family," Marie stated while fixing her hat on her head, taking a seat on a nearby chair. They planned to leave it to their grandfather to explain everything, and they would jump in only if they had to.

"Yeah, but don't worry. We'll explain to them, too," Callie reassured, going over to her cousin and taking a seat beside her, looking down happily at the ring on her hand, her cousin gripping her hand once more to reassure her that everything will be alright, and soon they will be back to their normal lives. Still, Marie never thought she would miss so many things in their lives, even the occasional paparazzi groups suddenly mobbing them to get photos.

"Ah-hem! Alright, listen up squiddos and… octolescents?" Captain Cuttlefish already felt himself losing track. He had no idea what to call young octarians, but he just rolled with the first thing to mind, not wanting to look like a senile elder who paused every five seconds before talking.

"Now, we all know that the cure has been made. My grandsquids here filled me in over the events that had occurred over this last year. Thankfully most of Inkopolis has gone without much harm, and according to the recent recon group we sent to Coralic City, things are in similar condition. However, there is a big difference between the two cities," Captain Cuttlefish began, starting to realize how his grandchildren felt on stage during splatfests. Stage fright appeared to run in the family quite well. He wondered how Marie was able to be so calm with this many eyes on them.

"Since Inkopolis received the cure far before Octo Valley even received it, Coralic City is overrun. The recon team wound up not able to enter any part of it. That was how bad it was," he continued. It appeared between the two cities, Inkopolis was in a far better state, all because of Callie and Marie's leadership skills that brought the cure around it.

"Get to the point!" one random squid in the audience called out. Marie pulled out her charger and fired a quick blast a burst of green ink that knocked the inkling off his seat with a loud thud. She rested her charger back beside her.

"Sorry, but please don't interrupt. Remember respect your elders," Callie apologized, aware that that one inkling was a very rude, and was very rough when fighting zombies. They did not mind since the grey monsters could not feel pain, from what they could tell. The Squid Sisters' grandfather smiled, thanking them before he coughed, trying to get back to his point.

"I'm aware that the zapfish aren't the only source of power for either city anymore. Both Coralic City and Inkopolis have ink pipelines, as much as I recollect it," Captain Cuttlefish continued. Coralic City and by extension Octo Valley ran off a huge flowing stream of ink that powered the city like watermills, but with ink being thicker than water, it gave more even more energy. No one wanted to remember the deal with fighting for literal power that the former octarian leader had brainwashed all of the octolings into fighting, especially after the former leader had been defeated and sent to parts unknown.

"Wait, grandpa. Inkopolis doesn't have an ink-line system…" Callie stated. There was no record of any form of ink transmitting pipeline in any of the inklings' home city. There would be no real purpose behind it either. The grandfather pointed at the map of Inkopolis, a red circle drawn at one specific part of it. There showed a water treatment plant, the main one that ran all through Inkopolis.

"That's why we turn this into one, and afterwards, we fill it with the cure, then we force it to cause all the ink to overflow throughout Inkopolis with the cure in it," Captain Cuttlefish responded. Inklings and octolings could not survive in saltwater, yet oddly enough it did not cause pain. It was disturbingly relaxing before they got splattered, but because most of the world was saltwater, they had special facilities dedicated to filtering saltwater into freshwater, the biggest one being the very water treatment plant that the elder inkling had marked.

"I don't recall this being brought up earlier…" Marie muttered, feeling like they had been left out of the loop on this one, but that might have been their grandfather conveniently being forgetful, "So wait, you want us to fill one of the only places of clean water with ink?"

"Look, squiddos. Sometimes the best plans are the most insane ones. I believe our friend was born with that in mind," Captain Cuttlefish chuckled with a random cheer from Iris somewhere in the crowd. He sighed, believing there to be bad news to this.

"I feel bad to be saying this to all the octarians here today. You all have worked hard, fighting for a city you don't even live in. This decision we have in mind was not made over a bad history between us. I'm aware of the library dedicated to inkling war crimes in Coralic City, but I don't care about any of the past right now," Captain Cuttlefish described. Callie and Marie did not want to even know what these war crimes could be.

"I am sorry, but between the two cities, we have to save Inkopolis first," he finished his explanation. He got the reaction he expected from the crowd angry octarians, mumbling amongst themselves and hate filled glares, and protestors already standing in their chairs. Marie was not going to waste her ammo on them. Callie had a feeling this would happen.

"Ah, jeez. I haven't seen a crowd this rowdy since that time you stole girls' clothes each time you splattered one," Beige commented. Emerald gained a big grin at the memory of that, when he wound up with three broken limbs by the end of that. He still stood firm on it being worth it.

"You suck, you old timer! You squids won't do anything!" one octoling shouted.

"Yeah! Your city will be safe, but we'll be thrown to the wolf fish!" another one roared, throwing a shoe at them. Marie caught it and tossed it aside, Callie hiding behind her.

"Guess I was hopin' for too much, thinking this would be smooth and easy," Captain Cuttlefish sighed as his white colored granddaughter caught another thrown shoe, just dropping it on the ground and keeping up her flat expression.

"Enough!" Octung and Iris simultaneously shouted. Everything became quiet, and all eyes focused on the two girls standing together out of their seats. Beige and Emerald were trying to lay low.

"Why did you shout for?" the octoling whispered to the then embarrassed Agent 3.

"I wanted to look dramatically cool too," Iris sheepishly confessed before sitting back down, leaving her new octarian friend alone to handle the matter. A frustrated sigh came from her.

"Everyone is wrong to judge each other. Sure, some squids are bad and octopi are bad too, but look at me," Octung presented her scarred arm. There were so many marks from she had been bitten a year ago by sets of zombies. She pointed to the Squid Sisters.

"I was trying to find anywhere safe I can find! I ran into Marie down there, and she did not draw a weapon on me. She offered to work together to help us find our families and get safe. I got bit a few hours later, and I lost complete control," she began recounting the horrible beginning of the zombie apocalypse, taking in a deep breath to calm down.

"I turned fast because of all the bites. Do you know what they did? What Callie, Marie, Beige and Emerald did? These random squids that barely knew me? They took me into the survivor base and locked me in a huge fence to make sure I would be safe! I was the first to be cured. They spent months making sure I was fine, and I've watched all of them save hundreds of lives and cure each and every one they could," Octung panted while lowering her arm sleeve, shaking her head in shame.

"Think about it, octarians. Inkopolis is easier to save now, thanks to the combined efforts between us all. We'll save Inkopolis first, and then we'll have an easier time saving Coralic City! We've all worked greatly together a year. We would not have made it this far if we all tried to only save ourselves. We can't just crudely throw that essence of teamwork away! If we stay selfish, we'll just let the zombies bite us all, because we gave up over some tiny decision that makes the most logical sense!" Octung finished exclaiming about her thoughts personally on it all. It made sense to save Inkopolis first and then save Coralic City afterwards, even if they had to cure the zombies there with a very insane method.

"Well? Are you octolings still against it?" Callie questioned. The octarians had calmed down, beginning to return to their seats with a few apologies chiming up. Captain Cuttlefish felt relieved to see this. Marie gained a grin, glad to have friends like them to help. It was time to take a grand step to defeating the zombies once and for all.

Captain Cuttlefish was ready to continue. "Alright. Let's discuss the plan further…"

"Wait! Can I have my shoes back?! It's cold!"


	12. Step toward a better tomorrow

After a good few hours, the plan was ready. Most of the troops were getting in on this plan, the rest left behind to guard the survivor village in Octo Valley. Callie and Marie were standing in the main plaza. Thankfully part of the squad that their friends had brought took major initiative and had covered all entrances of the plaza, and even had added a gate to the front, so now there was only one way to come through. The shop merchants were out from hiding, all looking happy but Spyke who kept that same look of his, though he seemed glad to have his alley back.

"So… not to be negative or anything but what happens if we mess this mission up?" Emerald had to ask while the six of them approached some of the vehicles.

"That depends on how far we get. No one has been to that part of Inkopolis since the outbreak, so it's safe to assume that there will be a lot of zombies," Octung responded, the Squid Sisters both trying to think over it.

"Yeah. If we fill the water plant with ink and then the cure, we'll have tossed the easy water supply away," Marie claimed. They still had access to water, but it would just be harder to obtain. The plan was for Octung, Emerald and Beige to take the modified fire truck, and distract as many zombies as possible and lead them away, while Callie, Marie and Iris went straight into the water facility to fill it with ink and then the cure. which would take time and no doubt draw even more zombies. Then the survivors will all came into play, every octoling and inkling available willing to fend off the inevitable hordes as long as they could.

"You guys ready?" Beige asked. The vast number of squids had hope today to get their lives back to normal way sooner than planned. Having the main plaza back already was a good enough morale raiser, but the chance to escape this nightmare once and for all was plenty to get inklings into this. It may have taken some coercing, but having the octarians fully committed now felt more reassuring.

"Ready," Callie and Marie said in unison, looking to each other with a smile.

"It's now or never! …seriously, we don't want to waste the hype while we have it," Emerald nodded, aware of how much energy that speech in the gathering hall in Octo Valleys survivor village had given to everyone despite the afternoon setting in.

"Yeah! Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah!" Iris screamed increasingly loud. Agent 1 smiled, glad to have her back, and even gladder to know that being apart a year had not changed Agent 3 even a little bit.

"Ready up!" Octung called out to everyone around. She climbed onto the turret back of the fire truck that had its ink tank carousal refilled, with two of them being filled with water. Emerald got into the driver seat with his best friend, Beige taking the passenger side. A lot of other survivors were loading into their own vehicles. Marie, Callie and Iris all headed to that black van that the Squid Sisters had borrowed when they came searching for their grandfather and best friend.

"We'll be fine. We have nothing to worry about," Callie reassured from the passenger seat, though she sounded more nervous herself, but it was almost like the voice in her head was done for, and she could tell that her dear cousin was more calm and relaxed now, her paranoia being lessened too.

"Plus we got better weapons," Marie claimed while climbing into the driver's seat once more, her kelp splat charger in the back seat beside Callie's krak-on roller, which were both right beside Iris's tri-slosher. Agent 3 had just grabbed the first weapon available out of excitement. The weapons were piled on top of six glass tanks that were filled with all of the cure they had available, and they were decently bigger than the average ink tank. Iris hopped into the back and slid the van door closed. It only took a few minutes for all the vehicles to begin rolling out right after the gate opened. A huge splatoon of squids and octopi were ready for hopefully one of the last steps needed toward a bright future.

"Hey, uh… do you think that Octung girl likes me?" Iris questioned during the drive. They could see the snow falling quite heavily at the moment. The windshield wipers did their best to keep the windshield clean. The Squid Sisters took a moment to process the question.

"Yeah. Who couldn't like your enthusiasm?" Marie nodded, assuring that their friends liked one another, even if they had only met a little.

"Why do you ask?" Callie asked. Their friend may have a strange train of thought, but it worked for her sometimes. The odd thinking was the best to have on hand, especially for just as crazy riddles.

"Well… I have a crush for her… a big one," Iris answered, with no change of tone like it was a casual conversation on a bus. They were both surprised by this.

"Really? Well… that's nice… I mean… how big is this crush?" Agent 1 hesitantly asked, that smile on Agent 3's face seeming to grow bigger.

"I want to wrap her up in my tentacles and solve riddles all day with her!" Iris gleefully answered. The imagery the Squid Sisters were getting made them start to think maybe they should warn Octung before she got tentaclenapped. Their octarian friend was a former higher up soldier in the octoling army until DJ Octavio disappeared, but then all the octoling army were on similar ranks.

"Here. Once things are back to normal, how about we pay for your first date with Octung? …a normal one!" Marie offered. This was more of a favour to Octung than anyone else. They instantly could feel Iris hug them both. The cars drove through a highway, and thankfully there were barely any cars left behind after zombies appeared. Everyone actually drove competently, and the survivors had only seen maybe three accidents over the past year.

"You two are the best! I'm going to drain your coin cards dryyyy!" Agent 3 claimed in a rapidly changing tone like she was playing a scary prank. The Squid Sisters smiled, knowing she would never do that, nor could she. They had enough coin cards that were at their limit on coin capacities that they never even needed to work another day in their lives if they chose to.

"It's the least we can do. We never really gave you a true reward for defeating the octarian army. Speaking of which, I wonder what happened to DJ Octavio… grandpa said he had lost him shortly after this all started," Callie wondered aloud, finding it odd how the former octarian leader had went missing, but it was safe to presume his snow globe prison was just stuck in a ditch somewhere, or being used as a soccer ball by zombies.

"We'll worry about him later. Let's focus on the mission," Marie insisted as Iris laid down in the back seat, Callie nodding in agreement. She wished DJ Octavio had gotten his war machine back up and running like he did twice before after escaping while their grandfather was eating crabcakes and biscuits. At least then they would have a huge machine that could splatter thousands of zombies with ease.

A long ride passed, but finally, they were nearing the water treatment facility, after they had crossed a bridge to the south eastern part of Inkopolis. Nearly all of the vehicles came to a halt. Countless zombies were up ahead.

"Alright. Squids, squidettes, octopi and… octopiettes? Ah, y'know what, just forget I said anything. You all sit tight," Emerald spoke over the communicators, revving the modified fire truck's engine. That vehicle was playing an even huger part than before in saving lives.

"We'll chime in when our part's done, and then you all move in," Beige claimed. The Squid Sisters were glad that Iris did not have a communicator piece herself, or else the communications would be very cluttered.

"Here we go," Octung gulped, readying the turret as the fire truck began driving ahead, Emerald turning on the bright flashing red lights and the siren blaring loudly, leaving everyone else behind. Immediately after entering the part of the city, zombies already were making themselves prominent, at least up to hundreds, if not thousands of them. It was quite horrifying, but they were able to keep calm and carry on. Octung pulled the trigger, beginning to open fire. They had to clear a path, and zombies would follow with ease. Each blast of ink splattered a few of the grey monsters easily.

Callie and Marie watched from the front seats of their van. It was like a grey tidal wave was following behind the fire truck. The zombie squids and octopi were appearing out of the shadows to follow the grand wave of ink. They were taking away a huge number of them, which was a good sign.

"In a few minutes, we'll start moving in," Marie spoke. She and her cousin were being the leaders of this squad again, but they never anticipated being left with this huge a team, and leading them in a fight outside of their usual carefully thought out battle strategy was a very drastic change to how they planned before.

"Hm… this reminds me of a riddle… let me recall it… oh yeah, that's right! What do you see? A single color of grey… or over fifty shades of grey?" Iris asked. The other agents both stared at the horde for a moment, trying to think up the answer, but nothing came to mind at all. They thought that even today they could solve her riddles with no difficulty.

"I dunno," Callie forfeited.

"Me too… what's the answer?" Marie contested defeat.

"The answer's yes," Iris smiled. The Squid Sisters just laughed a little. The simplest of answers that they would overlook, and their friend won that one. They would get her on the next riddle by the time they were done. The horde had moved on to try and chase after the fire truck at their slow pace, Marie stepping on the gas pedal.

"Let's go and be ready," Marie ordered to the rest of the survivors over the communicator as they began to drive the van ahead, the rest of the vehicles beginning to follow. The trio of agents had all the cure in their stock loaded in the back of the van, and they just had to pour it in specific parts of the water treatment plant after they filled it with their ink. As simple as this plan sounded, it felt a lot more terrifyingly stressful to them, except Iris. It was now or never, and if they failed the plan, they will have just set themselves back to a very inconvenient area, and considering how many zombies could be cured by this amount of the cure, they would be aggravated if it was wasted on a failed mission.


	13. Cornered

Callie, Marie and Iris could see the water treatment facility ahead, their van being followed by the other vehicles not too far behind it. Suddenly they all had to halt. Marie had slammed on the breaks, the screeching of their tires blaring, Callie holding onto the passenger door in shock. Iris sat calmly in the back, only being slightly moved by the sudden stop attempt.

"Oh, coral snakes…" Marie groaned, hitting her head against the steering wheel. There was a horde of zombies ahead of them. The other groups distraction efforts had taken a lot, but there were a lot more than that.

"What do we do?" Callie wondered aloud, feeling her fear return to her. She had presumed they would have to fight, but she never anticipated them to be up against this many zombies. They hated to imagine what Coralic City looked like if none of the survivors had gone near that city since the infection began and zombies started appearing.

"We rumble?" Iris took a guess.

"Why not?" Marie switched off the van's engine, pulling out the keys and pocketing them. Agent 3 got her tri slosher and passed up the Squid Sisters weapons from the back. The many zombies started to approach them, drawn by a few of the bright vehicles.

"Come on then!" Iris eagerly said, sliding the side door of the van open and quickly getting out, though hit her head on the ceiling accidentally in excitement before continuing climbing out.

"Everyone, start clearing the way!" Callie ordered over the communicator, watching already as multiple zombies were being splattered into rainbows of ink, the Squid Sisters going to the back of the van and opening it up while the others covered them.

"Do you think you can carry two of these?" Marie asked, seeing the six huge containers full with the cure.

"Of course," Callie nodded. They looked quite heavy, but she would manage grabbing two of them and putting them over her shoulders onto her back. The containers were hooked up by twos with harnesses, which made them able to be carried like backpacks. Marie grabbed the other two containers herself. They still had the matter of carrying the last two. Marie looked and then grabbed a random passer-by octoling who was trying to help their comrades splatter infected.

"Sorry, but uh… we need you to carry this and come with us," Callie apologized.

"Okay, fine," the octarian nodded and did as ordered, picking up the last two containers, holding the cure and putting it over his shoulder and onto his back. He hadn't much problem being a pack mule for the moment.

"Come on!" Iris called out from the top of the van, having climbed up there when multiple zombies swarmed the front. Callie sighed, getting her roller out and beginning to approach ahead with Marie beside her and the octoling in the back. Iris splattered the zombies in front of the van with her tri slosher before climbing down beside them as well.

"You take point, Callie. Me, Iris and…" Agent 2 looked to the octarian who had a bored expression across his face.

"Joe."

"Me, Iris and Joe'll cover you," Marie finished her sentence a bit late.

"Alright, let's go!" Callie slammed her roller on the ground and ran ahead, leaving a long wide purple trail behind her. Any zombie in front of them was splattered by her roller. Their plan was to push straight through with great force. Marie was making sure her cousin would be alright, firing fully charged green bursts of ink at any approaching zombies. Iris was both throwing purple ink at zombies and swinging her bucket of a weapon, smacking them back if she had to. Joe meanwhile kept their backs clear so the other two could keep Agent 1 safe.

"Ohhh yeah! We're winning this one, baby!" Emerald grinned, as he and the group playing distraction continued firing the occasional ink blast off to the side to make sure that zombies kept following them, as if the bright lights from the fire truck itself weren't enough to draw them like lights to obsessive moths.

"How's it looking up there, Octung?" Emerald asked their friend on the ink turret, though she looked to be not enjoying this as much as they were. The stress had forced her into being more serious on this mission, and the risks of what would happen if they failed were already making her head ache.

"Fine. The horde's getting bigger, but the ink carousal is about empty," Octung answered. They still had the few water filled tanks on the back, and one left full of ink. However, Beige saw something up ahead that he had to lean out of his passenger seat to see better. His eyes widened in horror.

"Oh no!" Beige raised his voice, shouting into his best friend's ear, "Emerald! Stop the truck now!"

"Ahh!" Emerald's attention was gained and his eyes went back on the road. He instantly slammed on the brakes, the tires screeching at the sudden desperate effort to stop. Octung gripped the turret hard, doing her best to not get thrown off. Emerald spun the steering wheel, the fire truck beginning to turn at a ninety-degree angle. They were right at a dangerous gap in the road, the fire truck finally coming to a stop just in time before it might have drove into it.

"Oh… thank Cthulhu we're alright," Emerald panted, Beige looking and seeing that the fire truck was only inches away from this huge hole in the ground. There was a lot of dangerous debris within it.

"Well… I guess this must have happened because of that earthquake a month ago," Beige sighed, relieved they were alright. Inkopolis had suffered a small sized earthquake not so long ago. It did not do much damage from what the survivors had been able to tell, but they never had been to this part of the city since the infection started, so there were bound to be new surprises.

"Guys! They're coming!" Octung reminded them that they had lead the biggest conga line in existence right to here. The huge sea of grey inklings and octolings were coming toward them, and if they kept coming at this rate, not only would the three of them and the fire truck would be tossed into the huge pit, but so will the many other zombies. They had no way to escape, and no way to prevent anyone from being hurt or killed from the fall. They could not just drive their way through the horde without running them over.

"Keep them away from the pit, no matter what!" Beige ordered, climbing out from the passenger seat, Emerald coming out right after him. Their weapons drawn, they began firing away, splattering the zombies to keep them away, Octung switching to the water ammo before firing one big blast that hit one zombie and sent it flying backwards, crashing into the next and knocking them back a good distance away from the trio.

"Callie! Marie! We have a problem!" Octung spoke on the communicator, still on the turret as she blastedg another set of the zombies backwards. This fresh water was quite effective, though she kind of wished it was saltwater, so at least the zombies would be splattered. Still they had to make do with what they could.

"Already? What's going on?" Marie irritatingly responded the plan sure seemed to be going alright up until this point she hoped it was nothing major.

"We lured the zombies away a good distance, but now we're at a dead end and tons of lives are in danger! We're trying to keep them back, but we have no idea how long we'll last…" Octung elaborated on the situation at hand. Being bitten again was the last thing on her and her comrades' minds right now. They all were going to soon be in a very scary trench with so many lives that could have been cured wasted.

"Oh gosh! Ju-just hold out! We're almost inside!" Callie added, while the sound of the groaning and moaning of zombies could be heard from both sides of the communicators. One group was at the edge of a horde of zombies and possibly their deaths, yet the main group working their way through a horde. Both situations seemed about as pleasant as eating glass, which was most likely one of the many unknown sharp things in the pit behind the three.

"I have an idea!" Emerald said. Just like that, he was climbing onto the fire truck and grabbing the ladder off the side of it. They had barely touched the tools to begin with. They really only had just added a turret to a fire truck and called it a zombie splattering machine.

"Please tell me it's a good one," Beige replied while kicking another zombie back and firing a rapid burst of yellow ink splattering more of them.

"Let's find out," Emerald smiled as he extended the ladder as far as he could, letting it fall forward. it quickly stretched to and touched the other side of the road. Before his comrades knew it, he was out of sight, having quickly crossed the ladder to get to the other side. He ran through an open door into a nearby building.

"Is it wrong to admit I'm growing to hate my life more and more each day?" Beige asked, watching more zombies get knocked back by a blast of water.

"If I said no, would you believe me?" Octung sarcastically retorted before realizing that one of the carousals had run dry and they were down to one tank of water and one tank of ink. She switched to the ink tank and began firing, watching more zombies get splattered. After a brief moment, they saw Emerald again. He was carrying a splatling gun, and he was not out to use it for its intended purposes.

"Here we go!" Emerald hit a button on the side of the splatling gun. He changed into his squid form, but then grew. It was the Kraken, one of the many special abilities each weapon had. The Kraken Emerald approached the horde, looking eager to keep them held back.

"Okay, well… this is an improvement," Octung said. Beige was getting into the driver's seat having an idea on what was going to happen. Emerald raised his tentacles up and slammed them onto the ground, splattering a huge group of the zombies. They were trying to spit grey ink at the kraken, but it did nothing and bounced off. The octarian began blasting ink and helping clear a way, while Emerald was using his kraken form to clear a way through. Although he had stolen the weapon from an inkling in their home, things at least were looking brighter as the giant green kraken cleared the way. The fire truck was right behind him, and just when they got through to the other side, Emerald's kraken form ran out, the splatling gun clattering onto the road as he landed on top of the fire truck. He just held on tight as they headed another direction, planning on being more careful to make sure they did not run into another dangerous dead end.


	14. Unexpected Problem

Callie, Marie, Iris and the random Joe had finally reached the other end of the zombie horde. At this point, the wave of grey infected creatures was being distracted by the rest of the group. Only a few came after the small squad of four, and they were instantly splattered. They began to make their way inside of the water treatment facility, though then the Squid Sisters could hear the communicator beep.

"Good news. We were able to get out," Octung chimed over the communicator. Joe was keeping that same straight face, letting the other three take the call while they were wandering through the creepy hallways, the lights flickering having been busted a while ago.

"Oh, thank goodness! Were you guys or any zombies hurt?" Marie asked, relieved over this with the other agents. They reached a locked door, Iris immediately kicking it, only to hop around with her leg throbbing in pain.

"No. We were able to lure every one of them away from danger. We're now just going in a huge circle, so you should have plenty of time," Octung reassured that things were working out perfectly on their end for now. The also relieved Callie broke the lock on the door and headed inside.

"Alright, we'll be done soon. We're just getting insiii-oh barnacles," Marie's jaw dropped. Zombies were everywhere inside this place. Grey ink was lining the floor in a lot of areas, and upon them entering this scary facility, the first wave of the many zombies began approaching them.

"Yup. Joe's dreamed about this before," Joe spoke up in a third person. No one really paid his comment attention.

"We just gotta fight our way to the main pump," Callie claimed, nervously gripping her roller even tighter. She was referring to the main tank that sent out the filtered freshwater throughout the city after it was converted from saltwater in the other tanks. It was not a complex process, but again, if they messed this up, things were going to become a lot more inconvenient for them.

"Alright. No messing around," Marie hit a button on her charger, and it changed into an inkzooka on her shoulder. She fired a big tornado of green ink that splattered tons of zombies instantly. They had to get to the main staircase up, and fast.

"Yay! No messing around, so let's make a mess!" Iris laughed, hitting a button on her tri slosher and gaining a bubble shield. She dove right into the zombie horde and started bashing them around with her bucket filled with ink. Callie began swinging her roller around, smashing and bashing zombies aside, usually splattering them in an instant. Joe was backing them up with basic ink fire, seeming too lazy to activate his special weapon, or not having it ready. They suddenly all felt a rumble beneath their feet.

"What was that?" Callie fearfully questioned, noticing multiple zombies in the distance upstairs get knocked aside by something. The zombies were being splattered by a new monster into big puddles of grey ink. It did not take much longer before they began to see a grey kraken.

"A kraken zombie…?! This is a whole new level of scary…" Marie commented in reaction, almost petrified. The giant squid zombie was stuck in its kraken form, and it was a brute for lack of a better word. The Squid Sisters had never seen anything like this compared to regular octopi and squid zombies. They watched it jump over the railing, coming right for them.

"Joe got splatted the same way as he lived, in a scary place with people he barely knew," Joe said before being crushed by the kraken into a puddle of grey ink, his ink tank and the two cure filled tanks clattering nearby. The others had gotten out of the way in time, but now they were stuck with this giant kraken zombie and all of its lesser cohorts. It did not hold a care for about how many it splattered on accident.

"Pl-plan! Plan! Need plan help!" Callie babbled, losing her voice in her random chatter, Iris looking to the other two agents that were getting ready to fight while trying to be brave in the face of impending danger.

"I have an idea. You go get everything ready while we buy time," Iris spoke off the top of her head. If they got everything ready, they could cure the zombies around them as well. Agent 1 looked at her cousin.

"Well I've heard worse plans from her before," Marie shrugged, agreeing with the idea. Callie gulped, doing her best to be brave and nodding. She put her roller on her back, grabbing the fallen Joe's ink tank filled with purple ink and container carrying a huge load of the cure, and began to run up the cleared steps. Agent 2 groaned as her inkzooka changed back to a charger. She and Iris noticed the kraken zombie raise one of its tentacles and swing downwards. They both ran aside, watching it crash into the concrete ground hard enough to send multiple zombies flying into the air and painfully land on the random ink puddles on the ground.

Callie got to the main water pump, where some zombies still remained around. She wondered what to do first. It all looked so complex, and this was before she even had to touch the control console. She planned on simply following the plan. She took Joe's ink tank and pulled the top off it, tilting it into the freshwater. She watched as the purple ink begin to pour into it.

"This is going to be slow…" Callie muttered. She was going to have to keep refilling the ink tank to keep pouring more into the water, until there was practically nothing but that in the water pump. She could not ignore the zombies at this point. She set the now empty ink tank down and pulled her roller off. She had to clear them away first. The first zombie that had the misfortune of approaching her got crushed by her roller from above, and it exploded into a puddle of purple ink. Callie went ahead, wanting to clear out the zombies from the upper floor before she continued to fill the main pump with ink.

"Watch it!" Marie screamed, ducking under another swing from the zombie kraken, Iris jumping over the huge tentacle. The tentacle dug into the side of a wall on impact, tearing it to pieces. Agent 3 was darting right toward the infected giant.

"I got it!" she laughed, sliding underneath the next attempted attack. The zombie kraken accidentally splattered another ton of zombies. Iris swung a few bucket full of ink from her tri slosher, hitting the back of the kraken. This seemed to agitate it and gain its attention, as it turned around, its lifeless eyes somehow conveying pure anger. Agent 3 could see a sharp piece of metal sticking out of the ground from where the zombie had bashed the floor in. The kraken began to prepare a swing, but Iris did not give it a chance, jumping off the head of another zombie upwards and grabbing the zombie kraken's left tentacle, slam dunking it onto the sharp metal and impaling it. Some blue blood dribbled out from the wound.

"Nice!" Marie gave her close friend a thumbs up, Iris returning it as well. The kraken zombie was not able to free its impaled tentacle. They heard the moaning of the zombies that had been trying to climb up the steps, but they all got tumbled down after one zombie got thrown at the rest of them.

"I need help up here! I can't fill it up fast enough!" Callie called down to her cousin and best friend.

"We're coming, hang on!" Marie called back as she and Iris jumped over some of the fallen zombies, fleeing from the other wave of zombies that were pouring in from other parts of the facility. They really were starting to wonder how many were in this facility. Callie had her best to fill as much as she could with ink, but on her own, she was only a quarter of the way done. Marie and Iris arrived to the main water pump as quick as they could.

"Alright. We gotta take a risk here," Marie said, taking her ink tank off her back and taking the cap off, beginning to pour her ink in as well. She would have to risk being without ammo for her weapon, but for the time being, the risk was well worth the reward. Callie continued dumping more ink into it as well.

"I'll make sure that nothing sneaks up on us and bites our soft... big... juicy... delicious looking tentacles," Iris tried to volunteer to defend them while they filled it with ink, but her mind wandered once again. They really wished she had better control over her mind and voice. Not having control over either really made any situation unpredictable.

"Iris, watch out!" Marie shouted, snapping their dear friend out of her train of thought. Four more zombies were coming up. Iris reacted by smacking them all off the upper floor with her two tentacles. Four thuds and a few groans were heard, whhile more zombies were currently trying to climb upstairs once more.

"How much longer, guys?" Iris requested, ducking under a random blob of grey ink being spat at her from a few zombies. Down below, the kraken zombie's rage was reaching its limit as it was banging its still free tentacle on the ground which caused an intense quake with each hit to the poor floor.

"It's almost there! We're about start dumping in the cure, so give us your tanks," Callie replied. Iris nodding, taking off the two canisters of the cure off her back and tossing it to the Squid Sisters. Marie barely caught it, almost falling, wishing she had received a warning before that. The purple inkling saw more zombies nearly at the top of the steps, when the kraken zombie swung its free tentacle once more, smashing the side of the stairs. This time they began collapsing, the metal clattering to the floor as the zombies fell to the ground. Iris felt relieved, now that the stairs that the grey inklings had been trying to make their way up had been taken out.

"Wow. Something going in our favor? Must be our lucky day," Marie sarcastically said, enjoying the rare instance she had tolerated a near year of the entire city and odds being stacked against her and her friends. She was frankly sick of having to fight overwhelming threats, from the octarian army to zombies. She and Callie had gotten enough battle experience in various areas to gain a stress disorder or two each.

"Let's end this," Callie smiled as she got her cure filled tanks off her back and pulled the top off them, Iris coming over to help with that same bright smile on her face. They began to pour the cure from all three of the glass tanks into the main pump, watching it begin mixing with the ink. A rainbow shade of color was forged, visible to the three of them. They knew this was going to create a big mess all over Inkopolis when every ounce of the cure was poured in. They went to the control console, beginning to hit buttons on it, when they felt another rumble.

"We should probably get to higher ground."


	15. Inkopolis Cured

**Authors Note: Hi all, I hope you all are enjoying the fic. I just wanted to put this here to let you know that this is not the last chapter, there is one more left. I hope you all enjoy! Oh and sorry if this hcapter has a few mistakes, I wrote it with a tablet. (Not by choice either.) And sorry again that it is shorter than most.**

Emerald, Beige and Octung drove throughout this part of Inkopolis, the octarian having climbed out of the mounted turret on the back of the fire truck and climbed into one of the back seats. They had long run out of ammo, and by this point, they were only leading more zombies on a big circular chase, continuing their job distracting them all.

"I can't get a response over the communicator…" Octung muttered worriedly, unable to get her communicator to work, same for her two friends in the front seats.

"Something might be obscuring the reception here," Beige claimed, though not being able to contact the main group was just as worrying to him. They hoped everything was going alright and it was just an unfortunate coincidence. They were going to distract as long as the modified fire truck could keep going.

"Not to pile on since we've been surviving so far, but uh… we're running low on gas," Emerald chimed in. They had started this mission with a full gas tank, but they had certainly given their vehicle no break. It was amazing that they had not blown out a tire or drained the battery yet, and every block they drove by felt like another dozen zombies added to the growing grey mob behind them. The other two sighed accepting it as obvious knowledge.

"What was that?" Beige quirked as he felt a rumble as they passed by a fire hydrant, trying to keep the fire truck at a generally slow speed. The zombies were still behind them from only a short distance. The fire hydrant suddenly exploded out of the ground, and a rainbow of ink erupted from the ground under the hydrant. They recognized that familiar colored substance, which began to fall like a rainbow of rain, beginning to coat the zombies. The grey inklings and octolings came to an abrupt halt.

"Whoa… stop the truck!" Octung demanded, Emerald pressing on the brake. They could notice more the cure flooding out from any available water source. Fountains were spewing the liquid out, and even some homes were overflowing with it.

"If I'm not mistaken… the plan worked," Beige chuckled, he and Emerald opening their doors and unhooking their seatbelts as they climbed out, Octung following behind. The humongous zombie horde didn't move a muscle, and soon enough, they were beginning to regain their color, the grey quickly vanishing. Most collapsed after they were cleansed of the infection. These few minutes felt like hours for what they were seeing.

"Come on! We need to help them out," Octung insisted they help the newly cured.

"Right behind you," Beige said, he and Emerald going off to help. With her as the leader, it seemed like it was a faded dream that would take forever to achieve, but today it seemed like they had done just that thanks to all of their combined efforts.

The three agents sat outside the water treatment facility. They could hear their communicators buzzing from various survivors across Inkopolis, reporting the cure's fast work, just like the plan was meant to be. The leftover zombies and the zombie kraken from the water treatment facility were long since cured.

"So it's finally over?" Callie wondered aloud, breaking the silence as the trio watched the other survivors who were preparing to help out hundreds, if not thousands of soon to be cured squids and octopi.

"For the most part, yes," Marie sighed in relief. She never imagined they would actually get to this point anytime soon. The plan worked, and the only zombies that would be left by the end of today would be in Octo Valley and Coralic City.

"I really wish it was not over… what am I going to do every day now if I can't fight zombies? That was most of the fun!" Iris questioned, that same confusing train of thought speaking well before she even considered what she was saying. Her two best friends gained smiles, hearing her speak like that.

"Raise your son? Have fun in turf wars?" Agent 1 suggested before her cousin gave her own thoughts.

"Hit on Octung and make riddles?" Agent 2 recommended. Iris tilted her head with her pacifier in her mouth.

"Oh yeah! I guess there is a lot I have to do," Iris scratched her tentacles, feeling glad to know things were going to be far from boring. They watched Agent 3 hop off the steps they were resting on before going off to help out the other survivors, not wanting to rest.

"Joe did not enjoy that one bit," they heard. Joe was walking out from the water treatment facility, having been pulled out from the grey ink he had been trapped in during that fight with the zombie kraken.

"Oh yeah… sorry about that, Joe! You did awesome in there," Callie apologized, feeling bad for having dragged the random octoling into such a very dangerous environment, though Marie didn't care. It wasn't like they had known what dangers lay within the water treatment facility.

"Joe's going to go take a nap," Joe shrugged before walking away. The two cousins decided they had gotten enough rest. They both got up and began their walk through the snow, aware that they were going to have to aid in this clean up and assist with helping the newly cured.

"So do you hear that voice anymore?" Marie quirked out of nowhere. Each footstep of theirs created a footprint in the snow beneath them.

"Actually, no… it kinda went away ever since we found grandpa," Callie admitted. She could tell her dear cousin's paranoia had dropped greatly from knowing that they were back to a normal Inkopolis.

"That's good… I'm looking so forward to sleeping in our own bed tonight," Marie stated with a grin as she grabbed Callie's hand, still seeing that ring she had given her. Her cousin did not protest to that statement, as she looked forward to get home to their apartment in Flounder Heights, hoping that no one had robbed it during this apocalypse.

"Hey… what about DJ Octavio, anyway?" Callie suddenly stopped and asked. Marie looked at her, remembering it herself.

"Well, I've got no clue…Grandpa lost him at the start of this all. But I'm kind of more curious about how exactly the zombies came about." Marie elaborated. Two questions piled up on the two Agents that hadn't been answered yet. The two of them tried to think over this, and not a clue was brought up in their normally well in sync minds.

"…I guess we shouldn't worry about it too much for now," Callie shrugged. Marie hesitantly nodded, deciding to agree. Finding answers to a problem that was already going to be fixed wasn't very necessary. For now, what happened had happened, and as far as they were aware, none of the infected were harmed gravely during this.

As the snow fell, the Squid Sisters continued on foot to the rest of the survivor group that were doing their part to treat the injuries of some of the newly cured inklings and octolings. The black and white inklings had left behind their roller and charger with Iris's tri slosher. Inkopolis was going to be back to normal, and hopefully this entire incident could be remembered as a bright moment in history instead of a grim one, where octarians and inklings had to make peace. Despite it being somewhat forced, they were glad to take any positive matter from this nightmare of a year.


	16. Back To Normal

**Authors Note: I hope you all have enjoyed this fic! This is the last chapter, so please let me know what you think of it. Thanks to the-irish-clover of deviantart, for helping proofread. I started this fic more as an attempt to try new things, I don't know whether or not I made zombies unique here, but I sure enjoyed writing this fic. I plan on trying more new things, either way have a good day and take care! I'll see you in my next fic.**

It had been only a week since the zombie apocalypse had been cured in Inkopolis, and already everyone was beginning to get back to their normal lives at Flounder Heights. The Squid Sisters' room was decorated two different ways. One half was painted and decorated in bright pink, and the other half was colored in a soothing green. Marie, Callie and Judd were all in bed, deep asleep their pet cat was at the foot of the bed, while the Squid Sisters were more entangled with one another. The whole experience had brought them together a lot more than they already were.

"Mhmm…" Marie opened one eye groggily. She thought she had heard something that sounded like the wooden floorboards of their apartment creaking. Flounder Heights was well known for being more high class and expensive. They moved in only for the sake of being near the main plaza. Marie opened her other eye, sitting up and looking down at her sleeping cousin. Callie was a heavier sleeper than she was. It came in handy whenever they needed to take a quick nap before their next broadcast over TV, until she inevitably was unable to be awoken from said nap.

"Hi, Marie!" she suddenly heard before the loud sound of an air horn blared in her ear.

"Yaaah!" Marie screamed and jumped back, falling off the side of the bed with a loud thud, Callie being accidentally tugged into the floor with the blankets, Judd being thrown off as well. All three were wide awake.

"Marie! I was having a nice dream!" Callie whined being somewhat stuck in the blankets. Marie was holding her chest panting from the scare, feeling like she almost had a heart attack. She saw Iris standing on the other end of the bed, holding the very air horn she had used to scare her dear friends. Agent 2 leapt over the bed and tackled Agent 3 to the floor, Callie watching from the floor and looking to Judd confusedly.

"That was not funny!" Marie growled, pinning the purple squid to the floor with her body. This was not the first time their dear friend had somehow bypassed Flounder Heights security and broken into their apartment.

"Oh… hey, Iris," Callie greeted her after finally realizing her. Her brain had taken quite a bit to awaken. Judd was groaning while getting up, feeling that he was not going to get anymore rest after this. He decided to head off to work early, leaving the bedroom.

"Hiiiii," Iris waved with one of her tentacles, her arms and legs still pinned down by an angry Squid Sister. After the moment had passed Marie climbed off her reluctantly already plotting methods of how to get payback for that prank whether it was intentional or not.

"What are you doing in our apartment?" Marie asked, standing up and stretching. She was wearing a pair of green pajamas with white polka dots all over. Her cousin was wearing a pink and white striped pair of pajamas herself. Iris was wearing a black bubble vest, her cherished pacifier still dangling around her neck by its chain.

"Everyone wanted to meet up at the plaza, so they sent me to get you," the riddle master explained while getting up, seeming to have no remorse for using her air horn to blast them awake. Marie yanked the loud device out of the riddle squid's hand and tossed it into the nearby trash bin by their mirror.

"Oh, right… you're leaving today, right?" Callie questioned, their best friend nodding.

"Yeah, but we'll talk about it when we get there, though I'll wait in your kitchen for you," Iris said, leaving the Squid Sisters' bedroom. The two cousins looked to each other, aware that they would have a lot of food to replace. The two decided to just get ready, wanting to see all their friends while they could.

After ten minutes, the two were heading out of Flounder Heights with their best friend, though they did notice the unconscious security guard at the apartment's front lobby, and they could safely assume that Iris had drugged him. They could see the main plaza battle tower not too far in the distance. Outside they could see the snow covered ground once more. Everything was feeling like a calm winter again, though it was sad to know that most of the season was over.

"Kind of feels weird to be able to walk around without having to constantly be on guard," Marie admitted. She was having trouble getting used to this. It was like nothing had ever happened, yet what reminded them that zombies existed at all were their memories, and that now octarians were living in Inkopolis as well. A lot of which having decided to immigrate here, even if their home city is reclaimed. The octopi got along just fine in their new home city.

"I'm just glad we didn't have to tear down the old base," Callie exclaimed. The former survivor base that they worked so hard to create with their bare hands with the help of all the other survivors was close to actually being torn down, but the city elected to keep the original starting point of the base untouched for the sake of a historical monument. After all, it could make for another big tourist attraction.

"What spews out grey stuff, is stupid and got stomped by the Squid Sisters?" Iris spoke out a riddle. Out of all the riddles they had heard from her in the past, this one had the most obvious answer.

"Zombies," Callie and Marie answered in unison, both laughing a little.

"Correct!" their purple friend laughed with them. They all began to arrive into the main plaza, everyone they passed by waving to them. They could see various octolings and inklings playing in the snow. They were more than glad to return the waves, though the two famous stars were still not used to being referred to as heroes by them all.

"Hey! Over here!" they heard a familiar voice calling out to them. Emerald sat nearby at the table outside of a coffee shop, Octung, Beige and Captain Cuttlefish accompanying him. The grandfather was holding a young sleeping Oczito, who was wearing a beanie cap and was wrapped in a blanket.

"Sorry for taking so long. They were so slow," Iris apologized pointing behind her.

"Yeup. My squiddos sometimes just want to nap all day," Captain Cuttlefish chuckled, Callie and Marie paying the comment no mind. Iris went to take a seat beside Octung, and she gave the octarian a kiss on the cheek.

"I wish you'd at least try to show some restraint…" Octung sighed, thankful for the show of affection while feeling her girlfriend's tentacle wrap around her. The two had gotten that first date the other night after a very awkward talk of admittance from Iris. It was actually quite romantic, though Agent 3's new girlfriend was going to need time to get used to exactly how straight forward Iris was.

"So you guys are going to be leaving today?" Callie popped the big question on their minds as they took their seats beside their grandfather.

"Yeah. The plan to take back Coralic City will soon be started," Octung nodded. They had gathered a lot of support from everyone in Inkopolis. There were still a lot of zombies in Octo Valley to be dealt with, but they now greatly outnumbered the grey monsters, so all they had to do was walk in and blast every last zombie they could find with the cure, though it was going to take a huge amount of time.

"I wish you'd let us come with you," Marie pouted. The main ones leading this whole cure operation to save Coralic City Were Iris and Octung, yet the young couple refused to allow the Squid Sisters to come along and partake in this battle.

"You guys need to rest. You've already done enough for these two races. We're all in debt to you," the octarian replied, denying any more efforts from the two Agents especially after all they had done.

"You've got nothing to worry about, gals! After all, they've got us and hundreds of others going with them," Emerald reassured, gaining a smirk from Callie.

"I'm sure you'll take good care of him, Beige," Agent 1 commented.

"Of course I will. He is my friend," Beige nodded. He was not going to let his best friend get hurt as long as he could help it. Octung looked at the time on her phone.

"We should get going to meet up with the others to prepare," she said while standing up, trying her best to get out from being wrapped in Iris's tentacle, finally getting it off after some minor struggling.

"Aw… fine…" Iris was disappointed that her embrace to Octung was broken, but she then turned to Captain Cuttlefish, rubbing her son's head who was still in his arms.

"Cappy, you take care of my boy, alright?" Iris requested while rubbing her son's head. Oczito seemed very cheerful.

"Don't you worry. He's in good hands. Trust me, one little blobbie ain't going to surprise me after what I went through with them," Captain Cuttlefish claimed. Callie and Marie gained embarrassed looks on their faces, aware that they had their fair share of naughty experiences, as well as nice ones, while growing up.

"Let's roll out then," Emerald stood up, so did Beige, and so the groups went their separate ways, Iris leaving while holding Octung's hand, Beige and his close friend talking and laughing it up.

"What do you got in mind for today, squiddos?" Captain Cuttlefish requested, seeing them standing up. The Squid Sisters looked to each other, but then pointing at the large television being displayed in the main plaza.

"I think it's time for the first…" Marie began.

"…stage update in a year!" Callie finished, the two of them thinking it was especially time to bring back Inkopolis news. They headed off to get to their studio, letting their grandfather come with them so that he could rest inside, and that they could be nearby in case he needed help with Oczito. After all that had occurred over the last year, such a traumatic event was being moved on from so simply that it was astonishing. The impact it made yet somehow changed so many lives at the same time. The Squid Sisters were happy to have been able to help save the day, though they still had to wonder what exactly happened to DJ Octavio and where the zombies came from to begin with. But again, they just brushed it aside for the time being, wanting to focus on getting back to work and resuming their normal lives.

 **The End...**


End file.
